Archives: Gazette Magazines

by Mai David R. Dixon & 1stLt Matt Ford

“She will make a great Huey pilot in the Fleet.” An encouraging comment like this on a performance evaluation would certainly bode well for the career of a young aviator completing helicopter training. Unless, of course, that Marine happens to be a male in the AH-1W Cobra syllabus. While comical, this true example ofa a I comment (from an obviously aloof reporting senior) illustrates a painful fact that many of- us have experienced firsthand-young Marine officers often author maladroit fitness reports (FITREPs).

This anecdote also highlights one of the numerous issues discussed during the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab’s Innovation Symposium which convened in Quantico from 23 to 24 February 2016. The symposium assembled disruptive thinkers from across the DOD in order to address the myriad uncertainties and challenges that create barriers to innovation and to propose solutions in order to develop a learning organization that is ready to meet future warfighting challenges.1 This is a bold mission statement indeed, and in order to succeed as a military organization, it is paramount that we recognize, promote, and retain the most talented and fully-qualified SNCOs.

However, accurately assessing the quality of a SNCO is a difficult task for a promotion board, which relies almost exclusively on the FITREPs from the SNCOs reporting seniors and reviewing officers-many of whom have little or no experience writing performance evaluations. Frankly put, most lieutenants are unsatisfactory FITREP writers. Almost everyone reading this article has either once been a novice lieutenant or had one evaluate you at some point. How many sergeants and SNCOs have had their otherwise exemplary careers damaged or possibly ruined by a wellintentioned but overzealous companygrade officer whose limited knowledge of the Performance Evaluation System (PES) caused him to write an inaccurate appraisal? This problem has existed for decades yet there has been little done to address how we train lieutenants to write FITREPS. This article proposes a solution that costs zero dollars, adds zero time to the current periods of instruction for officers, and can be implemented within a month.

Years ago, students at TBS wrote peer evaluations on each other that were more affectionately known as “spear evals.” Alter an assigned training periods (usually every two weeks), the student squad leaders would rank his squad, each student platoon commander would evaluate the squad leaders, and so on. The ranking criterion was extremely subjective and shrouded in the personal biases of the student evaluator. The delivery method for these spear evals was even more obscure and awkward. At the end of the six month TBS syllabus, students would tape an empty manila envelope to their barracks door, and the lieutenants would surreptitiously slip their opinions into each other’s packets. You were never really sure who said what- you just woke up in the morning with a bunch of index cards where your platoon mates anonymously vented about how great or terrible they thought you were based on whatever grading standards each person deemed most important.

Needless to say, that was an absurd system that made it extremely difficult to obtain accurate feedback. Even worse, spear evals did nothing to teach lieutenants about how the PES actually works in the Marine Corps. The process today at TBS has evolved somewhat-the mouse and keyboard have usurped the notecard and envelope-and now the lieutenants use the five TBS “horizontal themes” to rank themselves against each other. These themes are:

1. A man or woman of exemplary character.

2. Devoted to leading Marines 24/7.

3. Able to decide, communicate, and act in the fog of war.

4. A warfighter who embraces the Corps’ warrior ethos.

5. Mentally strong and physically tough.

These themes are solid, and they may be adequate for lieutenant students to critique each other; however, this is not how we actually conduct evaluations in the Marine Corps. In other words, we are not training like we fight.

The solution is simple. TBS students should write training FITREPS on each other in order to intimately learn the Marine Corps PES, master brief sheet, and promotion process. Logically, fireteam leaders would RS (reporting senior) their fireteam, and the squad leader would RO (reviewing officer) fireteam members. Squad leaders would RS their fireteam leaders, and the student platoon commander would RO the fireteam leaders, and so on and so on.

By the end of the six-month syllabus, each student will develop a comprehensive RS/RO profile in addition to personally receiving dozens of training FITREPS-all of this would be reflected on the student’s training master brief sheet. After TBS graduation, these training FITREPS would be expunged from the system by the FITREP Division at HQMC.

If HQMC is unable or unwilling to cooperate by eliminating these training FITREPS, a pragmatic solution is for TBS to develop a program in Microsoft Excel that identically mimics the FITREP grading scale, RS/RO profile formulas, and master brief sheet profiles. We don’t need to hire computer engineers or bid out contracts to software companies in Silicon Valley. There are lieutenants at TBS right now who could easily write these formulas in Microsoft Excel. In order to get this program quickly online we could utilize the free market economic principle of competition. If the Commanding Officer, TBS, offered a Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal and a “96” to the student team who designed the most accurate model based on our FITREPS and master brief sheets, it would be done in less than one month. More importantly, the TBS lieutenant community would feel ownership of the process. If this does not work for some reason, then we could direct some of our bright captains and majors studying in the computer science or manpower systems analysis curriculum at the Naval Postgraduate School to design this Excel program. The point is that we have the brainpower right now within the Marine Corps to get this up and running soon.

Training FITREPS will familiarize lieutenants with the arcane technicalities of the PES grading criteria and RS & RO rankings. Lieutenants would furthermore learn the even more befuddling intricacies of Master Brief Sheets (such as the “at processing” and “cumulative” FITREP averages, and the “upper, middle, lower”/”above, with, below” RS and RO profile scores). The profiles that students create on each other can then be used as a training aid during the promotion block to help young officers understand how their performance evaluations influence the promotion system.

Each lieutenant would surely get the uncomfortable opportunity to receive a few unjust or inaccurate training FITREPs. TBS lieutenants would then understand what it feels like to get rooked on a FITREP and how those few inaccurate FITREPS can inflict longterm carnage on their master brief sheet. These unsettling moments will emotionally seal the learning objectives into the lieutenant’s brains, thus making it less likely that they will give erroneous or half-hearted evaluations to their sergeants and SNCOs in the future. Moreover, by using training FITREPS and master brief sheets, the staff platoon commanders at TBS will have much more accurate means of evaluating their students’ leadership potential. Everyone wins.

TBS has already apportioned time in their syllabus for peer evaluations. The same amount of time will be spent evaluating, just using training FITREPs instead of the five horizontal themes. The bottom line is that the intent of this article can be met with zero money spent by the Marine Corps and zero time added to the TBS syllabus.

A very small percentage of lieutenants will actually fire their weapon in combat or call in an airstrike via a nineline, but every single officer will write FITREPS on sergeants and SNCOs. Yet, TBS devotes only a few classes to teaching this vital skill. FITREPS are highly technical and writing them can become an emotionally charged ordeal. Athletes can’t learn how to play football or basketball in a classroom, and lieutenants can’t become astute evaluators without feeling the pain over many repetitions.

Historically, lieutenants write clumsy FITREPs and do not understand the impact that a few inaccurate evaluations can have on a SNCO’s career and morale. This injustice to our enlisted Marines demands bold innovation and a better way of doing business. Change of any sort is typically unpopular, especially for a monolithic organization that highly values uniformity (such as the military). LtGen Michael Dana implored the Warfighting Lab Symposium to, “Be innovative despite the machine.”2 MCDP 1, Warfighting, also reminds us that,

Since war is at base a human enterprise, effective personnel management is important to success. This is especially true for a doctrine of maneuver warfare, which places a premium on individual judgment and action. We should recognize that all Marines of a given grade and occupational specialty are not interchangeable and should assign people to billets based on specific ability and temperament.^

We will never meet the intent of MCDP 1 unless we recognize, promote, and retain the most talented and fully qualified SNCOs-there are few things more important in our Corps. We can accomplish this only if company grade officers adeptly utilize the PES. In order to train like we fight, TBS should replace their five horizontal themed peer evaluations with a system that teaches about actual FITREPS, master brief sheets, and the promotion board process.

by The Ellis Group

What is perhaps the longest armored raid in military history occurred in August 2014 in Eastern Ukraine. Under then-Col Mikhail Zubrowski, the Ukrainian 95th Air Assault Brigade, which had been reinforced with armor assets and attachments, launched a surprise attack on Separatist lines, broke through into their rear areas, fought for 450 kilometers, and destroyed or captured numerous Russian tanks and artillery pieces before returning to Ukrainian lines. They operated not as a concentrated brigade but rather split into three company-sized elements on different axes of advance. Col Zubrowski is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and modeled the attack on a similar raid that occurred during the American Civil War.1

The story of Zubrowski’s raid demonstrates that certain principles of warfare hold true across military history. Since that time, however, the conflict in Ukraine has solidified. Russiansupported Separatist forces operate advanced capabilities, including electronic warfare (EW) and persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) enabled by advanced commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) unmanned aircraft systems. Ukrainian positions have been reduced to a lengthy series of underground trenches reminiscent of World War I. During that conflict, the ubiquity of indirect fire artillery produced stasis in the lines through sheer imprecise volume of fire. In Ukraine, that same stasis is the result of precision-guided munitions married to persistent ISR that renders volume of fire unnecessary. No Ukrainian offensive has been able to repeat the success of Zubrowski’s maneuver.

Maneuver is the core of our maneuver warfare philosophy. It is also the core of our force structure: every MAGTF is built around a maneuver unit. Maneuver, however, is not just limited to a spatial definition, and maneuver units are certainly not the only units required to execute maneuver warfare. Maneuver is described in MCDP 1, Warfighting, as any means of attacking from a position of advantage.2 The original FMFM1-3, Tactics, identifies two general types of maneuver: in space and in time.3 The Marine Corps Operating Concept {MOC) identifies four ways to gain advantage: psychologically, technologically, temporally, and spatially.4 Maneuver warfare means that we favor any indirect or non-linear method to gain an advantage, whatever means by which we maneuver. In the years since the adoption of maneuver warfare as the Marine Corps’ warfighting philosophy, spatial maneuver has been favored. In the 21st century, however, Marines must also master alternative maneuver spaces. What does maneuver mean in a strategic environment where every movement can be detected?

Strategic Context

To understand maneuver in the 21st century, we must examine it against a backdrop of the strategic environment in which it will be employed. The current and near-future operating environment has been described in the MOC and in this series of articles as being characterized by complex terrain, technol- ogy proliferation, information warfare, EW (“The Battle of the Signatures”)* and an increasingly contested maritime domain.^ These trends offer not only threats but also opportunities for maneuver-for us and our adversaries.

The proliferation of advanced weaponry and technology to even non-state actors is clearly an opportunity for our adversaries and, thus, a threat to us. Access to high-end weapons systems not only allow adversaries to mitigate our technological advantages but, due to other factors such as their willingness to accept or inflict civilian casualties, allows them access to advantages barred to us.

The global digital media environment enhances an already existing aspect of the nature of war, information, and influence. Even high-end peer competitors, like Russia and China, now routinely employ military deception in any action because of the potency of information warfare. EW will no longer be an option but will necessarily be central to large operations, both offensively and defensively.

Complex terrain limits traditional forms of maneuver but allows other forms. We see the rise of megacities, especially in the littoral environment, as a challenge and a limitation to maneuver. Adversaries, however, see megacities and their concentration of civilians as terrain to exploit in an attempt to negate our fire support and airpower advantages. Cities, however, are just one form of complex terrain; arctic, mountain, and jungle environments will see more conflict in the 21st century.

Lastly, because of the wide availability of advanced weapons systems, fortifications are returning to wide use, and every environment is contested. A network of trenches that would not be out of place during World War I now exists in Ukraine, and both sides in the ongoing Battle of Mosul are using fortification techniques. This trend reduces the ability of forces to employ spatial maneuver and places a new premium on armor and combat engineer units.

These trends combine to form two major conclusions. First, the line between conventional and irregular tactics is all but dissolved. The non-state actor known as the Islamic State holds territory that it won with our own weapons, and the Russian military in Ukraine employs as much, if not more, deception and information warfare as any terrorist organization. “Hybrid” warfare is no longer a special designation, but simply the normal form of warfare. Secondly, the combination of technology proliferation, automation of weapons, and constant aerial surveillance make the modern and near-future battlefield more dangerous than it has ever been, with the one exception of World War I.

Tactical Trends

These trends add up to a battlefield where protection and mobility are still important, but the need for units to operate in a dispersed and decentralized manner is vital. This is not to say that massing in order to concentrate combat power against enemy vulnerabilities will not happen or will not need to happen. It will. Rather, units will need to operate on a dispersed base routinely and only concentrate as the mission and situation dictates. This means that a maneuver unit’s agility-its ability to transition quickly between concentration and dispersion-will matter more than its ability to do one or the other.

Consequently, legacy command and control (C2) hierarchies will be increasingly ineffective in modern combat. Because of both advanced cyber and EW that can disable the means of C2- communications-and the high tempo of tactical decision making required to survive the battlefield, decentralized C2 will become a matter of survival. When a maneuver unit’s survival on the battlefield depends on quick concentrations and dispersions, C2 hierarchies designed solely for top-down command will no longer be feasible. Some measure of hierarchical C2 necessarily remain, especially in non-maneuver units. The point is not to entirely favor one or the other, but our C2 system is no longer “one size fits all.” More organic and flattened C2 will need to be adopted based on battlefield realities.

A high tactical tempo and greater dispersion must be enabled by organic firepower at the lowest levels. Maneuver forces need the capability to use fire and maneuver without losing tempo and, thus, initiative. In other words, this means utilizing combined arms without sacrificing the ability to continue to move in space and/or time. This requires an organic combined arms approach down to the squad level-a mix of direct and indirect fire weapons, including high explosives such as grenades, out to roughly 800 meters. There will still need to be an ability to call for fire support from outside agencies and battalion/regiment mortars, but tempo should be sacrificed to leverage inorganic support only when absolutely necessary. A stationary unit is a detected unit. This translates to the greater use of shoulder-fired missiles and/ or rockets by infantry forces and places a premium on combat engineering at the bleeding edge of the fight.

Lastly, to be successful on this modern battlefield, sustained investment needs to be made in maneuver forces, particularly infantry units. As firepower and ISR drives a greater need for dispersal of smaller and smaller units of maneuver, the danger to those forces of being outnumbered and defeated in detail increases. To mitigate this risk, the training and employment of infantry forces must be modernized; increasing squad-level firepower is only part of the solution. The dilemma is how to increase the capability and potency of infantry forces without overburdening them with gear. In a recent book, retired Army MG Robert H. Scales laid out a plan to do just that. In Scales on War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2016), Scales describes numerous ways to increase infantry capabilities based on a modern, scientific understanding of the physiology of humans in combat that takes into account cognitive, physiological, and social aspects of the nature of infantry combat. In a recent issue of the Gazette, four infantry officers reviewed the book and offered detailed recommendations tailored to the needs of the Marine Corps. Many of these recommendations are inexpensive, or are only expensive in the short term, but still offer an asymmetric advantage that adversaries will be unable to match.

Maneuver Spaces

The technical capabilities of the weapons and systems that maneuver torces can bring to bear are important, but conceptually, the most drastic change is the need to expand our idea of maneuver space. As the Nation’s amphibious force, we inherently seek to leverage the sea as maneuver space. However, this is just one way by which we seek to gain advantage.

Psychological. We seek to gain a psychological advantage over the enemy by either removing his ability to react to our actions or corrupting his perception of our actions and the situation. We can accomplish the former through surprise and the latter via military deception efforts. Boldness and aggressive action also offer psychological advantages that cannot be discounted.

Technological. A technological advantage can be acquired and maintained both by ensuring that maneuver forces have both the organic equipment to outmatch their opponents (discussed above) and the ability to “reachback” and leverage inorganic support from across the MAGTF and the joint force. However, we should be wary about relying too much on technological advantages. They are always temporary as adversaries acquire similar technology or develop countermeasures.

Temporal. We gain a temporal advantage over the enemy by manipulating the relative operational tempo to our advantage and to gain and maintain the initiative and by preserving our ability to make decisions and act upon them faster than the enemy. We mitigate the enemy’s temporal advantage via countermobility and interdiction actions. If the enemy’s temporal advantage is that he can outlast us in theater-such as is the case with insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan-we must take steps to ensure we do not culminate or contribute to the culmination of domestic political support.

Spatial. Expanding our conception of maneuver space does not mean that achieving a spatial advantage over opponents by maneuvering against flanks, rear areas, and gaps in the opponent’s system will not remain an important tool. The ability to maintain our mobility in the face of enemy attempts to diminish it, such as improvised explosive devices, is of the utmost importance.

Informational. We seek an informational advantage by exploiting various information warfare means to selectively withhold and release information. We utilize operational security to prevent the enemy from gaining an awareness of our actions and operations. We seek to gain information about enemy forces not only to assist in our planning processes but also to use it to our advantage. Information regarding enemy actions that violate the Law of Armed Conflict, for example, can be released and highlighted in order to undermine the legitimacy of their goal among local and international audiences.

To be sure, these maneuver spaces overlap. For example, a temporal advantage allows us the ability to rapidly employ spatial maneuver, which contributes to the ability to surprise the enemy, creating a psychological advantage. Utilizing decentralized decision making assures our temporal advantage by forcing the enemy to react to increasingly inaccurate information as he is successively out-cycled. Additionally, because any enemy is a thinking and reacting entity, they will attempt to gain their own advantages in each realm as well. Evaluating the enemy system and identifying both surfaces and gaps in terms of maneuver space across these dimensions will be imperative for future fights.

21st Century Maneuver Forces

While 21st century maneuver involves more than just “maneuver forces,” they remain the core of our organization and the base unit of any operation.

True light infantry forces will be a necessity on near-future battlefields. The more complex the terrain, the higher the premium placed on light infantry. As improvised explosive devices, precision guided anti-tank guided missiles, and precision ordnance continue to proliferate, the use of motorized and mechanized infantry forces will become more restricted. Since light infantry forces lack protection and rapid mobility, air assault operations will become more prevalent. Additionally, the Marine Corps needs to make innovation focused on augmenting infantry units without overburdening them an institutional main effort. Manned-unmanned teaming will be the most lucrative area of investment, but weapons systems that contribute to combined arms operations at the squad level and modern training simulators equivalent to those used to train pilots will be important as well.

That being said, the proliferation of firepower systems-both improvised and traditional-demands the MAGTF employ highly-mobile mechanized forces alongside light infantry. It is especially important for the MAGTF to have a dedicated reconnaissance/counterreconnaissance task force able to both ascertain gaps in the enemy’s array and to protect friendly vulnerabilities (see “21st Century Reconnaissance,” MCG, January 2017). MAGTF commanders will also need a capable mechanized force to act as a reserve and to exploit enemy vulnerabilities identified by the reconnaissance/counterreconnaissance task force. Being able to transport troops via armored personnel carriers is vital to both efforts. Additionally, the options available to “upgrade” an infantry unit’s mobility via vehicle transport will have to expand. Unarmored flat-bed trucks, like the MTVR, will not always be the best or even a viable option. Maneuver units will more and more often look to options such as the internally transportable vehicle (ITV), all-terrain vehicles, or other small mobility platforms. This means that infantry forces will need to be prepared to fight like dragoons (18th and 19th century units that travelled mounted on horses but fought as dismounted infantry once enemy forces were located).

Recent declarations that tank warfare is dead are false; tanks and tank warfare will remain a presence on the battlefield. Tanks themselves, however, will almost certainly evolve. Remotely-operated unmanned tanks are already in use in Iraq.6 With the rise of unmanned tanks, they will increasingly be employed more as a weapons system than a crew/unit. Once the unmanned tanks become common, the variety of tanks will increase. Light tanks, medium tanks, tank destroyers, and other tank concepts that were less than successful during the manned tank’s apex in World War II will become more viable. Unmanned tanks designed for specific complex terrain-urban terrain for example-will be both necessary and possible. Infantry operations in megacities becomes a little less daunting if every squad leader has a “hip pocket” tank small enough to be mobile in canalized urban terrain. In the long term, a modular tank chassis can be deployed and then outfitted with weapons systems 3D-printed on the battlefield based on the real time needs of forward forces.

One way to increase the capability of maneuver units without overburdening them is to revitalize combat engineering. The habitual relationships between infantry and combat engineering units in the division should be as intimate as those between infantry and artillery, if not more so. Combat engineers bring key mobility and countermobility solutions to the lead units, and as automation and robotics advance, the capabilities of combat engineers will only increase in both capability and importance.

Lastly, the importance of mortars as the maneuver commander’s “hip pocket artillery” will in no way diminish. Although precision-guided munitions will extend the range and increase the utility of mortars, especially in urban terrain, the ability to mass a high volume of indirect firepower will still play a key role in combined arms and maintaining tempo.

The Maneuver-Fires Relationship

As the characters of both maneuver and fires on the 21st century battlefield evolve, the relationship between the two will also need to evolve. Since some aspects of fire support lag behind adversary capabilities, the Marine Corps will increasingly need to maneuver to fire; fire support will require more enablers in order to be effective. Spatially, territory may have to be seized to get fire support within range of enemy forces. Maneuvering to fire will not just occur at the tactical level; Marine forces may be called upon to seize and hold territory in order to emplace anti-air defense or anti-ship cruise missiles emplacements that enable joint forces. Other maneuver spaces, such as informational and psychological spaces, will increasingly play a role and perhaps a more important role. As mentioned in “21st Century Reconnaissance,” recon units will be called upon to force the enemy to react so that Marine forces can detect his positions. Marine forces will also need to prevent enemy forces from do the same to us.

Using fires to enable maneuver will still be a key component of maneuver warfare but will be covered in detail a future article.

Conclusion

In some ways, equipping our maneuver forces-both physically and mentally-is the easiest way to prepare for the battlefields of the 21st century. The cost is less than even some single copies of higher-end platforms. In other ways, however, it is the most difficult. It will require innovative ideas and sustained effort, and it will mean traditions will have to bend. The hierarchical organization currently in use is flexible only to a point, a point that is being reached. More organic and modern command and control organizations are now necessary. (This will be addressed further in a future article, “21st Century Command and Control”).

Combined arms across five domains requires a greater variety in the type of weapons that the MAGTF can bring to bear. Greater diversity of arms, and thus flexibility, will be reflected within maneuver units as well not just among the wider Marine Corps. Maneuver is about attacking the enemy from an advantageous angle. The MAGTF itself is reflective of this as it is structured to shift between ground, air, and logistics efforts at any time. Maintaining our ability to maneuver in the 21st century is about maximizing the amount of options and arms available to the Marine on the ground.

by the Ellis Group

The ubiquity and availability of surveillance assets on the modern battlefield is unprecedented in the history of warfare. The “unblinking eye” of satellites orbiting the globe and observing every inch of its surface is available to anyone, not just military forces. Aerial surveillance systems are available off-the-shelf in department stores. The battlefields of the 21st century will occur on a global stage with an audience of billions. Despite this quantum leap in the capability and presence of surveillance, the need for military forces to conduct reconnaissance and prevent enemy forces from doing so will not diminish. In fact, the ability of such forces to interrupt or deceive enemy surveillance measures will become even more important.

Simultaneously, advancements in electronic warfare and cyber warfare mean units on the battlefield can be detected in a variety of ways, not just visually. As precision-guided munitions proliferate, units that can be detected will be fired upon. The “battle of the signatures” cannot be won simply by mitigating our own emissions-reconnaissance forces must be detectors and the MAGTF must actively and passively counter both enemy reconnaissance and the impact of social media. The ability to detect, analyze, and understand complex terrain, especially in urban megacities and among local populations, will not end with U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such information will be vital for Marine commanders in every future fight. Reconnaissance forces are ideally suited to lead the fight for information.

The use of reconnaissance to find and enable the exploitation of enemy surfaces and gaps and counterreconnaissance to prevent enemy forces from doing the same will not change, but the means and capabilities required to be effective will. Indeed, that change has already occurred. Maneuver warfare in the 21st century demands a modern concept of reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance operating alongside units tailored to fight and win the battle for information.

Horses and Tanks

For centuries before and after the gunpowder revolution, horse cavalry performed two general tasks: 1) reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance, and 2) direct shock via a charge to break the enemy line and the exploitation thereof. Traditionally, the cavalry arm was simultaneously the eyes of a general and a striking force. It was not coincidence that the Romans carefully selected their general’s second-in-command, his Master of Horse. Reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance was of the utmost importance. As gunpowder firearms improved in lethality, however, the ability of cavalry to perform these missions began to decrease. During the Crimean War, the famous “Charge of the Light Brigade” heralded the end of horse cavalry’s effectiveness as a shock force. By World War I, cavalry could not reliably perform reconnaissance nor conduct charges. During August 1914, both German and French cavalry reconnaissance units proved unable to operate in their traditional roles. As the war dragged on, the tank was developed and eventually filled the shock role while aircraft began to fill the reconnaissance role.

In some ways, reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance capabilities vastly improved, as aircraft began to fill the role. More ground could be covered faster than ever before-and in a much safer manner-as aircraft could avoid ground units by simply flying higher. Military forces, however, lost some of the detail that cavalrymen were able to acquire on horseback. The defeat of enemy reconnaissance units, now that they were aircraft, became the business of air forces. Motorized and mechanized reconnaissance units proliferated before and during World War II, but they have largely remained unchanged while aerial surveillance has changed dramatically.

Drones and Satellites

Aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and satellites are now the dominant means for reconnaissance. As advanced as the technology is, however, ground commanders are still bereft of the feel for the ground provided by a cavalry commander that knows his business. Aerial surveillance is an excellent, but insufficient, capability.

Unmanned systems are proliferating at a rapid rate; in any future conflict, they will be in use by our adversaries as well as ourselves. Even non-state actors now possess sophisticated unmanned aircraft systems’ capabilities. In October 2016, Islamic State militants used an armed drone to kill two Kurdish fighters and injure two French Special Operations troops in Iraq.1 Unmanned systems will increasingly be employed like a line of skirmisher’s-simultaneously observing and preventing the enemy from observing. Part of reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance then will be to punch holes in that line. Marine Corps reconnaissance units will not just need the ability to operate against an enemy on the ground but across all domains.

Potential adversaries are well aware of American over reliance on aerial surveillance. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), for example, has copied the success of Hezbollah when it comes to the camouflage and masking of positions. During the 2006 Israeli offensive into Southern Lebanon, the Israeli Defense Force was confronted with a defense-in-depth of squad-sized anti-tank and rocket teams that aerial surveillance could not locate. Hezbollah teams use both caves and buildings while employing low signature weapons systems in order to avoid detection.2 To further minimize their signature, teams did not communicate with each other; each team leader was charged with fighting the fight as he saw fit within his assigned area. The IRGC plans to replicate Hezbollah’s success on the Iranian shore of the Persian Gulf. This so called “mosaic” defense cannot be accurately mapped and analyzed through aerial surveillance alone. To be overcome, it will need to be probed by the MAGTF and forced to react.

Fighting for Information

In late 1950, Chinese forces streamed across the border between China and North Korea straight toward American lines on the peninsula. Despite daily surveillance flights, American aircraft never spotted the incursion. In late October and early November, Chinese forces attacked Republic of Korea and U.S. Army forces in the west and the 1st MarDiv in the east.3 Then, the attacks stopped. In late November, they attacked again, this time flowing around American strong points and then attacking from the rear. The initial attacks had located surfaces and gaps in the American positions.

The Chinese forces, by attacking the American forces for a short time, were fighting for information. The Chinese military was new and had never faced Americans before. After the initial phase of fighting, Chinese leaders wrote a pamphlet about how the Americans had reacted and distributed it to their forces.4 Then they attacked again, this time with a plan designed for their strengths and American weakness. By fighting for information and then planning based on that information, Chinese forces pushed the U.S. Eighth Army all the way back to the 38th parallel and forced the U.S. X Corps to trek through the Chosin Reservoir to be evacuated by the Navy.

The First and Second Phase Offensives-as the above attacks were named-are an excellent example of how intelligence can, and should, drive operations. But passive intelligence collection does not provide enough decisive information to drive operations and depends wholly on the enemy to make mistakes in protecting their information. The Marine Corps requires both a concept and a force tasked with the proactive reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance fight.

In 2014, just such a concept was proposed in the Marine Corps Gazette. In an article titled “Operate to Know,” LtCol Drew Cukor, Col Matthew L. Jones, Capt Kevin Kratzer, and 2ndLt Sy Poggmeyer proposed a four-point concept designed to ascertain and utilize intelligence to drive operations. The article states,

We effectively ask our most important expeditionary combat forces to operate nearly blind, relying primarily on limited theater and national surveillance capabilities to develop a meaningful picture of the battlespaced

Such tools are important but can never in and of themselves unveil the entire picture of an operating environment. The four aspects of the concept intended to alleviate this problem are: 1) intelligence and operations integration, 2) pervasive and persistent surveillance and reconnaissance, 3) a continuous operations and intelligence picture, and 4) integration with the global knowledge environment (GKE).6

The key is a multifaceted approach that analyzes both the enemy and the environment through a variety of means: aerial and satellite surveillance, reconnaissance, interaction with the human terrain, the electromagnetic spectrum, signals and human intelligence, and the GKE. Once the information from those means is analyzed, it then needs to influence the decision making of commanders. Currently, the MÂGTF has no one unit that can leverage all of those different means and then disseminate the knowledge resulting from the analysis thereof.

The MAGTF does, however, have a variety of means available to conduct reconnaissance and counter recon naissance. MCDP1-0, Marine Corps Operations, defines reconnaissance as,

A mission undertaken to obtain, by visual observation or other detection methods, information about the activities and resources of the enemy or adversary, or to secure data concerning the meteorological, hydrographic, or geographic characteristics of a particular area

and. counterreconnaissance as, “All measures taken to prevent hostile observation of a force, area, or place.”8 It also describes the various means available to the MAGTF to conduct both missions, such as radio battalion, reconnaissance battalion, and light armored reconnaissance battalion. While the MAGTF has a wide variety of such means, they do not fall under one command authority; the fight for information violates the principle of unity of command. A MAGTF WARRIOR exercise found that, during the execution, there were seven entities with responsibilities in the security area of the MAGTF, all of which had a different chain of command and none of which had any authority over the others.

The problem identified at MAGTF WARRIOR is twofold. First, the employment of reconnaissance/counterreconnaissance assets in such a manner is a detriment to the security of the MAGTF as information and action is fuzzed at the MAGTF headquarters, which in turn hampers initiative and the bold action required by maneuver warfare. Second, any information garnered by such units is filtered through various staff processes impeding unity of effort and rapid dissemination throughout the MAGTF-if that information proliferates at all.

While fighting for information is vital, so is preventing the ability of the enemy force to probe and test friendly positions as the Chinese did in 1950. The purpose of screening and guarding missions is to prevent just such a situation; however, screen and guard must be applied in all domains. Marine Corps reconnaissance assets must therefore be invested with full-spectrum intelligence capabilities while retaining their current ability to fight and win if need be while simultaneously falling under a single commander tasked with the mission.

21st Century Reconnaissance and Counterreconnaissance

To conduct reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance in the 21st century, the detailed information formerly available to the cavalry or infantry unit must be combined with the full spectrum of modern sensing, acquisition, and intelligence collection capabilities while retaining sufficient combat power. This requirement is not limited to major combat operations. In “small wars” or counterinsurgency fights, there is a need for effective reconnaissance to map the human and urban terrain and assess insurgent actions. While reconnaissance assets must surely be prepared to fight, their proper role is much less “shoot, move, and communicate” and more “sense, make sense, and communicate.” Such assets are not currently employed and equipped to accomplish the latter.

MCDP /-//describes reconnaissance operations as those that, “Use visual observation or other detection methods to obtain information about the activities and resources of an enemy or adversary,” and counterreconnaissance as, “All active and passive measures taken to prevent hostile observation of a force or area.”^ For the 21st century, reconnaissance will have to rely much more on other detection methods-such as electronic and signature detection- rather than visual observation. Counterreconnaissance will have to employ more active measures to “ping” and “probe” the enemy in order to either deceive them as to the whereabouts and plans of friendly forces or unmask their force employments.

Fighting for and generating intelligence, preventing the enemy from doing the same, and leading the MAGTF’s military deception efforts is a task as daunting as it is necessary and thus will require a maneuver commander assigned mission and employing a task-organized force combining reconnaissance, information and electronic warfare assets, and all source intelligence capabilities into one command. This will better enable the MAGTF to identify enemy critical vulnerabilities, protect its own, and exploit that knowledge through decisive action.

The role of reconnaissance forces in the future will resemble the “Long Patrol” of the 2d Raider Battalion on Guadalcanal in 1942. The battalion, led by LtCol Evans Carlson, initially landed at Aola Bay, east of the main American position protecting Henderson Field. Then-MajGen Archer Vandegrift tasked Carlson to

scout west toward the perimeter to determine the strength of enemy forces between Aola Bay and Henderson Field, as well as to interdict any of the fifteen hundred Japanese troops … 111

During its month-long operation through Japanese-held, territory, the battalion fought dozens of skirmishes and small fire fights with enemy troops as well as a major battle at Asamana village.11 After eliminating Japanese artillery positions and locating the main Japanese movement corridor, the Raiders then eliminated Japanese positions overlooking Henderson Field by attacking their hill top positions from the rear. All told, the Raiders inflicted 488 casualties on the enemy while suffering only 16 killed and 18 wounded themselves, although malnutrition and disease plagued the unit as well.12

Carlson’s patrol simultaneously conducted reconnaissance, disrupted enemy movements and attacks, and prevented the enemy from conducting its own reconnaissance. The Raiders’ specialized training allowed them to move quickly and evade enemy counterattacks, but when a fight could not be avoided, they were able to prevail. Modern reconnaissance forces need to be able to do the same but will need assets to do so which were not available to Evans Carlson.

Conclusion

Modern reconnaissance forces are the heirs to the horse cavalry’s mastery of fighting for information on land. Increasingly though, both reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance efforts will need the ability to detect and fight for information in the air, sea, space, and cyberspace realms. Capabilities such as unmanned aircraft systems, the ability to counter them, electromagnetic sensing and detection, and the full spectrum of intelligence gathering will need to be brought together on a routine basis. All of the capabilities needed to conduct 21st century reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance are currently housed throughout the MAGTF: task forces tailored and devoted to the fight for information will be necessary.

The changing nature of the fight for information leads to a few questions that should drive Marine Corps efforts to modernize its recon naissance/counterreconnaissance concepts:

* How can we best equip the MAGTF to conduct reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance in all domains?

* How can we organize, train, and equip the MAGTF to achieve surprise on the 21st century battlefield?

* How can we organize, train, and equip the MAGTF to deceive our adversaries?

* How can we best protect our intent and determine the intent of our adversaries?

* How can we conduct the reconnaissance/ counterreconnaissance to control and manipulate tempo?

As reconnaissance is a vital part of maneuver warfare, these questions should guide Marine Corps concepts and force structure in order to conduct maneuver warfare in the 21st century.

by Maj Jeffrey L. Seavy

“Congress has shown the same strong confidence in the Corps’ reliability. This precious confidence can be maintained only by a religious dedication to one thing that impresses congressional members, and that one thing is performance. Performance, in its turn, is geared to readiness, not just readiness but readiness to go and win-and then come home alive. Without steady, reliable performance, year in and year out. Congress would never have so consistently stood by the Marines in their times of trial. Performance is what it is all about.”

-LtGen Victor H. Krulak1

America is in perpetual financial distress. The Marine Corps must evolve and improve in an efficient and fiscally defensible manner. It must be fiscally defensible to the Secretary of Defense, the President, and Congress. While doing so, the Marines must dramatically increase capabilities over adversaries and the enemy. The threat is “rooted in attitudes or aspirations of the Army, the Navy, or various chief executives, its nature has varied-threat to the Corps’ repute, to its right to fight, to its very survival.”1 Therefore, the Corps performance must continue to improve to ensure battlefield victory and institutional survival.

The Marine Corps needs to make significant investments to improve capability and capacity to operate and fight in the urban littorals. In the next 15 years, the Service will need to modify how it organizes, trains, and equips to remain the Nation’s force-in-readiness, and it will need to do this at a bargain price. This article will focus on what significant investments the Marine Corps needs to make to create capabilities and capacities necessary to fight on tomorrow’s battlefields.

When there is a challenge, the Marine Corps normally looks first to a technological solution. During the last 15 years of war, an entire generation of Marines has become accustom to buying their way out of problems. It was Boyd, the father of maneuver warfare who said, “The military believes most of all in hardware, but people should come first. Then ideas. And then hardware.”2 This article will use Boyd’s lens of people, ideas, and equipment to explore ways to raise the bar and expand the Marine Corps’ urban capability.

People

The term “urban” is very general- it could mean anything from shanty towns to high-rise buildings. Urban terrain is especially complex because of the abrupt changes and angles, both physically and politically. Urban littoral operations can achieve improved outcomes and lower risk with Marines who can see the hazards and have the savvy to exploit the opportunities like those found in a three block war.3 It was common a few years ago, when talking about developing Marines, to say that “we’re aiming to put a gunnery sergeant head on a PFC’s body.” The idea was to take a young Marine and imbue him with all the insight and experience of a Marine a decade older. Real experience, however, is earned. Mentoring alone cannot take its place. Both Geoff Colvin’s book Talent is Overrated and Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers discuss the 10,000 hour rule4 and how it takes approximately that much time to gain the experience necessary to fully master a job. It takes time to gain experience, both for individuals and units.

So what is experience?

Training + Education + Real World and Daily

Operations – Experience

This article assumes a Marine with experience has the wisdom needed to make better decisions.

The Marine Corps starts with raw recruits-the Service does an outstanding job recruiting the best young men and women in America. Therefore, only marginal increases can be made through improved recruiting. The Marine Corps does an outstanding job with training and education. In the last 20 years, great strides have been made with ranges, highly realistic simulators, and unit training techniques. All of these improvements have resulted in a superior Corps and its ability to provide a successful, forward deployed force.

Now and in the future, the Corps absolutely needs to continue to improve TTP (tactics, techniques, and procedures). It needs to raise mental and physical standards when readiness gains result. The problem is the Service has reached a point of marginal and diminishing returns under the current training model, i.e., it is impossible to put a gunnery sergeant’s head on a PFC’s body, and that is why an experienced military force is so difficult to form. It takes time to acquire experience, and there isn’t a short cut.

Risks and Opportunities

The Marine Corps had a very different operational capability 150 years ago. In 1894, William F. Fullam, USN, first proposed to reorganize the Marine Corps into six ready expeditionary battalions to support the fleet or U.S. foreign policy.-5 Although, at the time, the institution did not respond well to his suggestion, the Marine Corps did evolve, and it is evolving today to develop a better capability.

New soldiers, Sailors, airmen, and Marines can be trained in a matter of months, but the experience the Nation often demands takes many years acquire. The bar has been raised by the American public and the Nation’s leaders. It takes far too many years to have the experience and capability needed to continue to be considered a key player by our national leadership.

The Marine Corps is losing the battle for the right to fight on several fronts. The question is not one of ability to execute-it is a question of being selected. The Marine Corps is being beat by better trained and equipped units from the other Services. The Marine Corps only needs to find a few innovative ways to close the gaps on its weakness and seize the opportunities with its strengths. The Navy/Marine Corps Team has a unique readiness position which resonates well in Congress. They have a packaged “army,” “air force,” and navy, i.e., a MAGTF aboard L-Class ships. This forward deployed capability gives the Marine Corps ownership of the word readiness.6 The ownership of the word readiness needs to be protected by ensuring mission performance.

The Marine Corps is in the business of providing the Nation with a guarantee of military performance. There are numerous examples of when experience has made the difference. In Ken Burn’s film, The Civil War, it was BG John Buford’s experience that made the difference at Gettysburg.7 In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, LtGen Paul K. Van Riper, USMC(Ret), discussed Chancellorsville8 and how the battle came down to some ineffable, magical decision-making ability that GEN Robert E. Lee possessed and GEN Joseph Hooker did not. Lee had more experience with complicated tactical situations. He learned to instinctively use the principles of war-and had the experience to creatively break those principles, as he did at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

The judgment and wisdom gained by experience separates winners and losers. In COL T.N. Dupuy’s book, A Genius for War, he discusses the importance the German General Staff played in the success of the army and how institutional experience drove individual wisdom and performance.^ Mary Walton’s book, DemingManagement at Work, discusses how Marine Col Jerald B. Gartman needed a critical mass of experienced people to carry out his mission.10 In Roger W. Claire’s book, Raid on the Sun, the 1980 Israel operation to destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor was executed by highly experienced and specially selected team of pilots.11

The Marine Corps cannot quickly train an experienced force. Special operations communities have shown the value of concentrated pools of experienced soldiers and Sailors. The Marine Corps needs to raise its game to a new higher standard. The Marine Corps needs to further re-invest in Marines who are proven performers.

Ideas

The Army, Navy, and Air Force have an average age of 29 to 30 years. The Marine Corps is the youngest, with an average age of 25 years.12 The Marine Corps has had good results providing these young Marines with outstanding training and first class equipment; however, the Marines Corps has largely maximized its operational capability with this model:

E3 – Experienced Marines + Enhanced Training and Equipment

The Marine Corps needs to seize the opportunity and capitalize on its experienced Marines to make material improvements. The Service should build concentrated pools of experienced Marines by adopting an E3 concept, which would convert between 5 percent to 30 percent of structure from within selected units, currently filled by first-term Marines, and trade it for second-term and career Marines. Only MOSs and units which could significantly increase capability would be selected. The concept would affect less than five percent of total structure.

An E3 concept uses experienced second term and career Marines to form units. These units would conduct training according to the respective training and readiness (T&R) manual13 to meet mission essential tasks and specific mission essential task lists for a unit’s individual mission analysis. These units would execute T&R tasks to a higher standard and would take on additional tasks. Marines in these units would be provided with enhanced training and equipment.

The Urban littoral environment is the most complex, dangerous, and “man intensive” terrain in which to conduct military operations-“MOUT eats infantry.” E3 units (experienced Marines, enhanced training and equipment) would more efficiently and effectively execute these operations. These E3 units would have a higher base line level of experience and wisdom, which will allow them a jump start on the lower end 1000 to 3000 T&R tasks. These experienced Marines will quickly accelerate to collective 4000 to 6000 tasks and the respective E-coded events.1’1

An Illustration of the E3 Concept- Infantry Battalion

The E3 concept provides a path to improve performance in infantry battalion mission essential tasks and specific unit mission essential tasks lists. It opens the door for units to develop new T&R tasks and events based on the higher potential these experienced units are likely to achieve, e.g., operationalization of company landing team (CLT) concept and single ship deployers as outlined in Expeditionary Force 21E The E3 concept will result in higher standards and enhanced capabilities for the forward deployed force.

Imagine an infantry battalion with one less rifle company {–182 Marines), traded for two T9 Marine E3 enhanced infantry companies and one T9 Marine E3 reconnaissance scout sniper company (RSS). These E3 units would be led by major company commanders, captain platoon commanders, and SNCO section leaders, with the balance of the unit being made up of mostly NCOs. The remainder of the infantry battalion would be made up of two rifle companies {–198 Marines), with 15 Marines added to execute distributed/company landing team operations,16 a standard table of organization and equipment weapons company and the headquarters and services company {minus scout sniper platoon). {See Figure 1.)

Enhanced Infantry Company {Enfantry)

The E3 enhanced infantry company, which this article will now refer to as the “enfantry company,” is led by a major company commander, a captain executive officer, a first sergeant, a master sergeant operations chief, a gunnery sergeant logistics chief, a staff sergeant intelligence chief, a staff sergeant communications chief, corporal radio operator, corporal cyber exploitation technician {for local attack and defense interface), and one petty officer first class independent duty corpsman. The company has three platoons, led by a captain platoon commander, a gunnery sergeant platoon sergeant, sergeant intelligence chief, a sergeant of radio chief, and a petty officer second class independent duty corpsman. The platoons are made up of three sections, each led by a staff sergeant, with a sergeant assistant section leader, a corporal radio operator, a corporal automatic rifleman, a lance corporal grenadier, and a petty officer third class corpsman.

The enfantry company is designed to be employed as a company or as an individual platoons. For example, the platoons are large enough to secure and isolate {cordon) an objective areas and still have enough Marines to provide support to an assault force, which would reduce the objective. Sections are the base tactical unit designed to act independently for short durations. Each platoon and section would have a balanced infantry MOS mix. There would be a heavy dose of MOS cross training. Crew-served weapons would include: two medium machine guns, two SMAWs, and two 60mm mortars. These weapons would be held at the company level but maintained, and checked out by sections depending on the mission requirements. (See Figure 2 on previous page.)

Reconnaissance Scout Sniper Company (RSS) Company

The RSS company is led by a major company commander, captain executive officer, first sergeant, master sergeant operations chief, gunnery sergeant logistics chief, staff sergeant intelligence chief, a corporal intelligence analysis, staff sergeant radio chief two corporal radio operators, and one first class independent duty corpsman. The company is made up of two different platoons: a reconnaissance platoon with three sections and a scout sniper platoon with eight teams.

The reconnaissance platoon is led by a captain platoon commander and a gunnery sergeant platoon sergeant. The base unit of the platoon is a section, each led by a staff sergeant, with a sergeant assistant section leader, a corporal radio operator, a corporal automatic rifleman, a lance corporal grenadier, and a petty officer third class corpsman. This unit is designed and optimized to conduct reconnaissance missions for a battalion executing distributed operations, while supporting collection activities of the greater G CE and MAGTF. The section is built to conduct independent operations for several days or weeks.

The scout sniper platoon has eight sniper teams and is led by a 0203 first lieutenant platoon commander and a master sergeant platoon sergeant. The teams are made up of the following: two teams made up of a gunnery sergeant and a sergeant, two teams made up of a staff sergeant and a corporal, and four teams made up of a sergeant and a corporal. These teams are designed and optimized to execute precision fires and scouting missions for the battalion. The base unit of employment is one team of two Marines, which could conduct independent operations for short periods, combine teams for longer more complex missions, or directly support companies. (See Figure 3.)

Strengths. There are numerous advantages to trading current infantry battalion structure for two enfantry companies and one RSS company:

1. Enhanced performance. These units will execute current T&R tasks to highest standards and effectiveness, 1.e., near 100 percent reliability and proficiency.

2. Versatile. These units will be able to expand the capabilities of battalions by taking on new advanced T&R tasks, i.e., ability to execute (CLT) distributed operations, use of advanced communications equipment, joint terminal attack controllers with an ANGLICOlite capability, ability to execute ‘ long range” patrols and raids, and enhanced medical capacity.

3- Trusted. With virtually a guarantee of performance, the national leadership and combatant commanders would be more willing to select these units, e.g., they would be trusted to carry out missions from L-Class ships that currently warrant calling in Special Operations Command units.

4. Flexible. E3 units are leadership heavy and would be able to support advisor training teams taskings without stripping the key billets of an entire battalion. These units could partner to advise and train and/or to conduct combine operations with allies and partner nations.

5. Expandable. Each enfantry company could scale up to a full regular rifle company. The NCOs, SNCOs, and officers are hard to scale up quickly, but they would be in place. The junior Marines could scale up relatively quickly and combine to establish a standard table of organization and equipment rifle company.

6. Interoperable. E3 units would aim to be the preferred partner of the Raiders and other Special Operations Command units.

7. Candidates Pools. There is an opportunity for the Marine Corps to establish an in-depth candidates pool, which would feed recon and Raider units without breaking the rest of the Service (specifically recon) by logically progressing from a rifle company, to an enfantry company, to recon battalion, and to the Raiders. Raiders could cycle back to spread the knowledge and experience to the Service’s operational forces. (See Figure 4.)

8. Freeing. The E3 concept will likely free recon from some tasks, allowing them to focus on missions from higher headquarters, and having the depth to fully achieve and/or increasing standards and capabilities.

Challenges. There are few disadvantages to the E3 concept:

1. Higher cost to retain more secondterm and career Marines, i.e., NCOs, SNCOs, and officers-captains and majors. (See Figures 5 and 6.) Time will be needed to grade shape the force.

2. The Service is only allowed 21,000 officers by law. Of those, 17,500 are available to support table of organization requirements after taking into account trainees, transients, patients, and prisoners costs. Of those 17,000 that support the Authorized Strength Report (ASR), 16,400 are available to actually fill unit billets. This would cause a shortage about 168 officers, which means total officer structure would need to be reallocated or increased.

3- There would be a higher cost to arm, train, and equip the force over those required for entry-level training and standard battalion deployment work ups.

4. The E3 concept also will cause grade shaping for recon and Raider Marines.

Other MOSs

E3 infantry battalions, recon and Raiders units, would benefit from individual and unit E3 capabilities in other communities. Other communities would execute current T&R tasks to a higher standard and possibly add some newT&R tasks. These would include: engineers, intelligence analysis, logistics teams, communication teams, and unmanned aircraft (VMM) squadrons. Imagine a VMM squadron where 30 percent of its pilots and air crews are made up of highly exceptional pilots, also known as “good sticks.” These majors and SNCOs would focus on flying.

Equipment

An equipment (technological) solution is often the first option used to solve a challenge. This article relegates equipment third behind people and ideas, but it’s still a key force multiplier. To ensure performance in urban littoral operations requires trained and certified Marines, cutting edge equipment, LClass ships, and possibly non-standard shipping.

Naval power projection and protection. The Marine Corps and the Navy have a unique capability which needs an antimissile and anti-ballistic missile ship protection system. A similar subsurface threat protection system is also needed. A realistic solution needs to be found to continue to field a credible capability.

Urban communications. Communications is the number one challenge. It’s the communications device that allows a Marine on the ground to call in the vast resources to locally overwhelm the enemy. It enables Marines to strike the enemy, conduct command and control (C2), resupply, and call for life saving support. Troops on the ground need internal communications for every Marine. PDAs (personal digital assistant) will provide better situational awareness, mapping, 3D mapping, and a way to quickly pass orders/frag orders. A way is needed to overcome the communications dead spots that are inherent in a dense urban environment and also overcome the likely use of local jamming and hacking. A communications system is needed that is locally strong enough to overcome jamming and provide multiple avenues or relays for messages to be sent around urban obstructions. Imagine an airborne network made up of numerous small independent unmanned aircraft vehicles/systems that are link into a system that allow for continuous coverage and service by allowing them to seamlessly integrate and self-repair, as individual vehicles/systems need maintenance or are lost.

Unmanned systems. Unmanned systems will be needed to support the six warfighting functions. The urban environment is very Marine intensive. Unmanned systems, large and small, both ground and air (fixed- and rotary-wing) will be needed to conduct: 1. reconnaissance, 2. logistical resupply, 3- communications and relay platform, and 4. strike/ground attack. The wave of the future for logistics is unmanned aircraft systems. They have great advantages for ship-to-shore logistics and are 100 percent safe to transport supplies into and through an urban environment. GPS guided, parachute, aerial resupply systems could also be an option. Imagine an enfantry section using “pull logistics” and directly receiving a night delivery of batteries, ammo, water, ammo, and MREs directly from a quad-copter.

Fires. The ability to deliver small diameter munitions, with high accuracy, is essential to the landing force for engagement winning or lifesaving support while limiting collateral damage and the political side effects. The landing force will likely be distributed and outnumbered. Superior CLT (GCE) precision fires (munitions) capability will be the key force multiplier to ensure operational and tactical execution.

The landing force will also require munitions capable of targeting rooms and floors within buildings. Enhanced M203 ammunition options, soft launch rockets, and an improved system for the 0351 community will greatly improve the capability of the landing force. This includes an overpressure thermobaric or novel explosive rounds.

Urban mobility. The landing force will need systems to ingress, transit, and egress the urban environment. To connect to the seabase, non-standard, and L-Class shipping will require a system like the ultra-heavy lift amphibious connector. A connector is needed to land on narrow beaches were LCACs cannot land. An innovative solution is needed to tackle sea walls. Think of Inchon and its sea walls, which are now commonplace. Protection will need to be balanced with weight, speed, amphibious ability, and overall efficiently. The same will be needed while transiting the urban environment. Innovation is needed with everything from improved armored vehicles and fast attack vehicle options to urban terrain climbing kits.

Other technology.

* Imagine eye protection integrated with a heads-up display and a camera mounted weapons system that would allow the Marine to shoot around corners and capture images or video and upload them to their squad, platoon, or company. With the use of night vision goggles becoming wide spread, the Marine Corps needs to add a different technology. Thermal optics coupled with smoke may be a way to maintain an advantage.

* Developing an airborne medical module would greatly improve performance and enable longer range missions. Heart defibrillators are everywhere, why not build a complete medical system that could be loaded into an aircraft? Mission risk would be lower by providing casualty stabilization. Crews and corpsman would need training.

* Regarding the invisible electronic battlefield, Marines should look for ways to enable non-technical specialists to hack into local networks. Think network hacking kit (NHK). This capability would allow non-technicians to locally setup a reach back capability, which could unleash 100s of cyber Marines, while at the same time providing network protection to stop attacks by adversaries who attempt to hack into the communications network and taking over unmanned logistic and weapons systems.

Other challenges. At the end of the “Ideas” section, this article covered the higher cost to retain second term and career Marines, the challenges with officer structure, and the cost to arm, train, and equip E3 units. In addition to those challenges, some of the proposals in the equipment section would be costly and require extensive maintenance. It would also open the force up to risk of critical failure regarding integrated C2 communications; personal communications, data, and optics; as well as the complex problem of making a fleet of unmanned vehicles/systems and ground systems function to support reconnaissance, logistics, communications, and strike/ground attack. To ensure capability, technology integration needs to be balanced with non-electronic backups, e.g., GPS vs. maps and compasses.

Conclusion

The urban littoral environment is the most complex terrain in which to conduct military operations. The best way to improve Marine Corps performance and operational capabilities is to adopt an E3 Concept by adjusting ^5 percent of our total force structure to build concentrated pools of experienced Marines by forming units made up of NCOs, SNCOs, and officers. This will result in an overwhelming tactical advantage by raising the bar on standards, capability, and performance, and it does so in a practical, cost-effective fashion. There is one thing that impresses congressional members, and that one thing is performance, which means the Marine Corps will go in, win, and then come home alive. An E3 concept will ensure performance.

by LtCol Frank J. Martello, Jr.

Over the past 10 years a substantial number of Marine officers and staff noncommissioned officers have been exposed to the tactical warfare simulation evaluation and analysis system (TWSEAS) either in formal Marine Corps schools or during training exercises in the Fleet Marine Force (FMF). In many cases these officers received their exposure as participants in a large exercise and, therefore, did not acquire a full appreciation of the system’s capabilities or its potential for small unit training. For others the exposure was several years ago and, consequently, their knowledge of the system is outdated. As a result, more than 12 years after its introduction into the Marine Corps, TWSEAS continues to be an enigma to many Marines. This article describes the current capabilities of TWSEAS and discusses some of the preparations and employment considerations that a unit should be aware of when considering this type of training.

During the early 1970s, the Marine Corps began searching for a more efficient method of generating realistic exercise scenarios to support command post exercises and evaluate field maneuvers. The immediate objective was to eliminate or reduce the labor intensive manual generation of battlefield scenarios designed to provide realistic training for operational units and their headquarters staff elements. Two developmental projects were undertaken to accomplish this goal. This first project, the tactical warfare analysis and evaluation system (TWAES), focused on evaluating performance during actual field exercises. The second, the tactical exercise simulator and evaluator (TESE) was developed to facilitate command post and map exercises for training unit staff sections. TWSEAS, which was adopted by the Marine Corps in 1976, consolidates these efforts to provide a realistic and effective training system for both active duty and Reserve forces.

Presently, the Marine Corps has three active TWSEAS systems. One is located at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC) at Quantico. This site provides tactical exercise support for formal schools at the Training and Education Center and also serves as the central network support center for all TWSEAS functions, including future development efforts. The remaining sites at Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune provide TWSEAS support for the operating forces of I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) and II MEF respectively. A fourth site to support III MEF forces on Okinawa will be activated during 1990. Although the system capabilities are consistent from site to site, the standing operating procedures differ as a result of differing missions, concepts of employment, and available personnel support These differences illustrate TWSEAS flexibility and its capability to adapt to local training requirements.

System Capabilities

TWSEAS is a powerful training medium that enables commanders to evaluate tactical exercises and measure their unit’s effectiveness in the areas of staff planning and command and control. The system can simulate scenarios involving Marine expeditionary unit (MEU) through MEF level forces in low-, mid-, and high-intensity conflicts. During a command post exercise (CPX) conducted with TWSEAS, staff sections at each echelon of the exercise force are confronted with a scenario that requires them to function in a continuously changing environment. The exercise unit determines the scope of the scenario. Friendly forces are built in accordance with input provided by the supported unit’s operations section (S-3/G-3). The opposing forces are built around information provided by the intelligence section (S-2/ G-2) acting as part of the TWSEAS tactical exercise (TacEx) team or a tactical exercise control group (TECG), if one is established. If the supported unit does not provide a TECG, as is common with battalion-level exercises, the TWSEAS TacEx team performs this function. Since in most exercises it is necessary to simulate many higher headquarters agencies and external elements with which a unit would normally interact (e.g., the tactical air command center (TACC) or the artillery battery’s fire direction center (FDC)), the exercise control team also provides the command and control system that would originate or terminate in these constructive elements.

TWSEAS generates exercise play by implementing decisions made by the commander and his staff in such areas as the maneuver of tactical units, use of supporting arms, and the employment of combat service support (CSS) assets. The control of opposing forces is accomplished by the TECG/TacEx team or by a separate unit commander and his staff in a force-on-force, free-play exercise. Once TWSEAS is aware of the combat capabilities of both the friendly and opposing forces, the system measures the results of tactical engagements of opposing units by assessing personnel casualties and equipment damage and provides a setting in which the unit commander can measure the success of his subordinate elements in accomplishing their assigned missions and his “commander’s intent.” All TWSEAS exercise activity is generated by the interaction between real world decisions by the commander and his staff and simulation programs in the TWSEAS application software.

TWSEAS simulations are now controlled by a map maneuver control (MMC) program. The MMC software functions primarily as a tactical staff training mechanism and is used to support CPXs and fire support coordination exercises (FSCExs). When conducting a CPX, the system simulates all maneuver units; when conducting an FSCEx, actual firing units, (e.g., artillery batteries or mortar platoons) can be integrated into the friendly forces constructive task organization. All inter/intra unit communications are conducted over simulated (wire) doctrinal tactical radio nets that would normally be available to the unit in an actual combat situation. These communications nets are usually manned by organic unit communications personnel, thereby providing concurrent hands-on training for junior enlisted radio operators during the course of an exercise.

TWSEAS Simulations

To fully appreciate how TWSEAS provides the driving force for a tactical scenario and taxes the technical and tactical proficiency of the exercise force staff, it is necessary to understand the simulation capabilities resident within TWSEAS software. The cornerstone of these simulations is the generation of raw intelligence data that friendly forces must gather and interpret. The flow of combat intelligence is the principal driving force within TWSEAS, and the ability of a unit’s intelligence section to gather and evaluate it correctly will determine their tactical success during an exercise. Intelligence is made available through higher headquarters agencies (e.g., information provided by force reconnaissance units or photo reconnaissance/remotely piloted vehicle missions), external units provided in the task organization (e.g., battalion reconnaissance teams and sensor control and management platoon (SCAMP) assets), and organic subordinate units (e.g., surveillance and target acquisition (STA) platoons and reports from simulated units operating in the field). The intelligence officer and his staff must use the assets at their disposal to seek out available information and analyze it to obtain an accurate estimate of the enemy’s combat power, capabilities, and probable course of action.

In TWSEAS, as in the real world, a prerequisite to collecting combat intelligence is the ability to detect the movement/activites of enemy forces. The detection module in the MMC software provides this capability through a network of detection simulations. These simulations are designed to reflect, as realistically as possible, the detection capabilities of tactical units and intelligence collection agencies available to the exercise force. In TWSEAS, the ability of a unit to observe or have an aural detection of another unit depends on range between units (and the size of the unit being observed), line-of-sight limitations, and situational variables, such as time of day, weather, illumination, area vegetation, movement by the detector/detectee, and the posture of the observed unit (e.g., unprepared, covered, a hasty defensive, dug-in, or fortified positions). Each of these variables is assigned a mathematical probability factor that is used by system software algorithms to determine the outcome of the detection situations. Further, a randomly generated probability factor varies the outcome in a series of similar detection situations. (This randomly generated probability factor also applies to the supporting arms.)

TWSEAS has the capability to strictly control the mobility of maneuver elements during an exercise. The rate at which any unit or subunit can move is determined by its mode of transportation (e.g., on foot, in wheeled or tracked vehicles, etc.), time of day (e.g., day, night, or nautical twilight), and terrain. TWSEAS can be programmed to recognize the actual relief of the terrain represented in topographical maps of the exercise area. As a result, the exercise force staff must carefully consider the terrain over which its subordinate units must operate, paying close attention to such things as lines of communication, transportation assets available, and any natural or man-made obstacles that might be encountered. The exercise force can employ manmade barriers and minefields to delay or canalize enemy units, thereby exploiting the tactical advantages of available terrain. Concomitantly, the employment of barriers and minefields by opposing forces must be countered through the proper use of friendly engineer assets.

The ability of the commander and his staff to effectively plan and coordinate the use of supporting and combined arms determines a unit’s success or failure on today’s battlefield. TWSEAS fire support and tactical air simulations offer an ideal opportunity for commanders to evaluate and improve their unit’s capabilities in this critical area. The fire support simulation provides exercise forces with the capability to execute a fire support plan and determine its effectiveness in supporting the commander’s scheme of maneuver. TWSEAS can simulate all conventional indirect fire weapons currently available to U.S. forces as well as those of the Soviet Union and its client states. The effectiveness of these fires on both friendly and opposing forces will be determined by such variables as the caliber and type of weapon system being employed, its effective range, and prevailing weather conditions (e.g., snow or heavy rain). Fire mission results are made available to friendly forces if they have a subordinate unit in a position to observe that fire. Since TWSEAS is completely impartial in its casualty assessments, consideration must be given to the “danger close” parameters normally associated with the respective type of fire support used.

The aviation support simulation, the most recent major enhancement to the TWSEAS MMC software, was added to the system in May 1984. Prior to this update, a persistent criticism of TWSEAS was its inability to simulate a realistic air defense capability. TWSEAS is now capable of providing exercise units with a realistic simulation of offensive air support, assault support, and air defense, including air-to-air engagements, surface radar detection systems, and surface-to-air missile defense systems. With the manual simulation of air reconnaissance and electronic warfare capabilities by the TWSEAS TacEx team, exercise units now have the opportunity to plan and coordinate all functions of Marine aviation. MMC monitors variables such as aircraft turnaround times, ordnance loads, fuel expenditures/ time-on-station, preplanned and on-call missions, and time-on-target Battle damage assessments (BDAs) are determined by weighted and random variables in the same manner as described for the fire support module.

The system determines casualties and BDAs when units are engaged in force-on-force confrontations and when they are subjected to direct or indirect fire from enemy supporting arms. As stated earlier, the commander’s task organization structures the friendly forces and their available equipment at the outset of a TWSEAS exercise. Tactical units normally begin an exercise with the personnel strength listed in their table of organization and the weapons and equipment allocated to them in their unit table of equipment or allotted to them in the task organization of the exercise force operations plan. These are finite quantities that will be accounted for by the TWSEAS system as the battle is fought. Units receive realistic spot reports. As a result, all exercise force units receive continuous feedback on the impact of their tactical moves and cost in terms of manpower and equipment. As units suffer attrition, their effectiveness is degraded accordingly until they are not longer combat effective. Casualty limits, (e.g., the point at which a unit will automatically withdraw from an engagement), can be set at the discretion of the unit commander. For instance, setting a casualty limit of 100 percent for a subordinate unit causes that unit to fight to the last man. Decisions in this area must, therefore, be carefully considered. The number of casualties a unit suffers in any particular engagement is determined by the type of weapon system and ordnance employed against it (e.g., heavy machineguns, artillery, etc.), its tactical formation (e.g., column, on-line, etc.), and its tactical posture (ranging anywhere from troops in the open to heavily fortified positions). Once again random probabilities prevent consistent outcomes in similar engagements.

CSS considerations are another factor that must be taken into account by a unit conducting a TWSEAS exercise. Since the system closely monitors such things as ordnance expenditures and the damage or destruction of major equipment items, developing an effective CSS plan to support the commander’s scheme of maneuver is imperative. Because all CSS elements supporting the exercise must deal with the same constraints and tactical threats applied to tactical units within the simulation modules, CSS planners must develop plans for such things as the tactical movement of logistical trains and rear area security.

Amphibious operations are the Marine Corps’ stock-in-trade, and it is also the area in which TWSEAS has its greatest potential. An effectively coordinated TECG, using the full range of simulation capabilities, can realistically execute most aspects of advanced force operations and amphibious assaults across a hostile beach. During advanced force operations, the commander of the amphibious task force and the commander of the landing force receive feedback on the results of preassault operations, such as naval bombardments, deep air strike missions, and intelligence gathered from photoreconnaissance assets and force reconnaissance team insertions. Operations normally conducted during this phase, which are not reflected in the system software, such as mine countermeasure operations and hydrographic surveys of landing beaches, can be generated manually by the TWSEAS TacEx team or TECG.

During the assault phase of an amphibious operation the TWSEAS ship-to-shore simulation allows the ground combat element commander to execute the landing plan developed by his staff and gauge its effectiveness as the tactical situation develops ashore. The ship-to-shore simulation will phase units ashore, on a real-time basis, in accordance with the landing plan entered into the database. However, the sequencing and loading of scheduled and on-call waves acquire added meaning as maneuver elements begin their assault inland to seize amphibious task force and landing force objectives. Consideration of such things as an effective fire support plan, the availability of helicoper deckspace on assigned shipping, single lift capabilities of helicopters and assault amphibian vehicles, and the capability to “pre-boat” tanks, artillery, and other essential combat equipment in landing craft take on critical proportions as maneuver elements attempt to secure their initial foothold ashore.

Maneuver Warfare

There are those who feel that TWSEAS, with its ability to provide specific casualty assessments for personnel and equipment, is an attrition based wargame and, therefore, incapable of evaluating units in the context of the techniques of tactics of maneuver warfare. This is not the case. As stated earlier, the objectives of a TWSEAS supported CPX are established by the commander of the unit conducting the exercise. Success or failure in the exercise must be measured in terms of these objectives. It is the responsibility of the senior controller to ensure that the exercise is conducted in accordance with the exercise force commander’s intent and that system output is used in such a way as to achieve/support the designated objectives.

Attrition data is not inimical to a maneuver warfare exercise. It is, in fact, necessary to any tactical wargame as a means of determining the effectiveness of fire support plans and the relative costs in terms of personnel and equipment of different tactical plans. Problems only develop when players fixate on quantitative data in an effort to determine “winners/losers” of an exercise in numerical terms, thus diluting the importance and effectiveness of the system.

Planning Considerations

The high tempo of operations within the FMF requires that all training opportunities be considered with regard to their cost in terms of preparation time and personnel support requirements. TWSEAS is similar to any other training endeavor; its effectiveness is contingent upon proper planning and aggressive execution on the part of the using unit. TWSEAS is unique in that its flexibility allows a unit commander to tailor an exercise to his specific training objectives and time constraints, thus facilitating its integration with other scheduled commitments. Personnel support requirements for TWSEAS vary depending on the level of the unit conducting the training and the scope of the exercise scenario. As a point of reference, a battalion conducting a CAX using the Twentynine Palms “CAX” scenario would normally provide approximately 10 officers/staff noncommissioned officers and 15 enlisted personnel as TWSEAS facilitators. These Marines are required to perform duties as supporting anus and maneuver cell controllers (officers/staff noncommissioned officers) and radio operators (enlisted personnel). The only prerequisites for these support personnel are a positive attitude and expertise in their respective military occupational specialties. When assigning support personnel, however, one should keep in mind that the performance of these individuals in their assigned billets will determine the quality of the exercise.

As stated earlier, TWSEAS can accommodate MEU through MEF level exercises, including individual battalions and regiments. Note that TWSEAS training is not limited to infantiy units. In the case of combat support and CSS units wishing to use the system for in-house training, a constructive ground combat maneuver element can be generated by the TWSEAS TacEx team to drive a scenario emphasizing their particular training requirements. Nor is physical proximity to the TWSEAS site a limiting factor when planning for an operation. Each TWSEAS site now has the capability to support exercises at remote locations using dedicated phone lines for the transmission of exercise data. This is particularly important to Reserve units since it allows them to conduct a TWSEAS exercise from their local Reserve centers at significantly reduced expense.

As a rule, a unit requesting an exercise should begin detailed planning a minimum of three to four weeks in advance and prepare to attend three coordination meetings with the TWSEAS TacEx team personnel during this period. The first meeting consists of an in-brief during which the appropriate unit staff representatives, usually from the operations and intelligence sections, are given an overview of the system and data input requirements concerning such things as friendly task organization, the composition of the opposing forces, and the commander’s concept of operations. During the second meeting, TWSEAS representatives will review unit input and provide any assistance required in developing the exercise scenario. The third meeting involves final coordination and resolution of any remaining problems. Depending on the size of the exercise force, units will physically set up at the TWSEAS site one to three days prior to the start of an operation in order to establish command posts and ensure all simulated tactical radio nets are functioning.

An average exercise lasts from two to five days, although the actual duration of any TWSEAS training evolution is determined by the exercise unit commander. It is important to emphasize that during a TWSEAS exercise the TacEx team works for the supported unit commander and views that entire evolution as “in-house” training for the exercise force. The TacEx team does not provide post exercise reports to higher headquarters; it only provides post exercise debriefs to the supported unit at its request. Because of the planning requirements mentioned above, exercises less than two days in duration are neither feasible nor practical. In this regard, potential users of the system should realize that detailed planning on the part of the using unit to construct the general and special situation surrounding an exercise is an integral part of the TVVSEAS training cycle. For this reason the TacEx teams supporting I MEF and II MEF do not maintain any canned scenarios designed to accommodate units on a last minute basis.

Future Development

As a result of continuing hardware and software enhancements over the past 12 years, TWSEAS has evolved into a powerful training medium. Nevertheless, the system has a number of limitations that must be corrected if it is to keep pace with future training requirements. Efforts are presently underway to accomplish this with the development of the integrated maneuver control (IMC) program, which is scheduled for implementation during 1989. IMC will significantly enhance the system’s capabilities to support CPXs by adding three new simulation modules that will include the areas of combat engineer operations, communications/electronic warfare, and nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare employment. Many of the existing simulations will also be refined/expanded to reflect an even greater degree of realism for exercise forces.

IMC will also provide the capability to evaluate a unit’s tactical performance during field exercises. Personnel assigned as unit evaluators will be able to relay information to the supporting TWSEAS site from their remote field locations using a tactical radio connected to a digital communication device. Once received, this information will be processed by the system and made immediately available to the TECG, providing a continuous update of the exercise as it develops. Throughout the exercise, operational units will receive feedback on the results of their tactical maneuvers in the form of battle damage assessments resulting from unit engagements.

TWSEAS is not a shortcut to effective unit training or a replacement for the hands-on experience derived from fire support coordination exercises and field operations. However, when used to complement rather than replace traditional training methods, the system can be extremely useful in honing the combat effectiveness of any organization. The crucial point for commanders and their operations officers to keep in mind is that TWSEAS is available today to support the training requirements of operational forces in the FMF. While the system is not perfect, its effectiveness has been well documented throughout the Marine Corps during the past 12 years. Current plans for enhancement of the system will ensure that its training value increases as the Corps’ modernization program proceeds through the 1990s and into the next century.

by Col Richard B. Rothwell

KERNEL BLITZ 88-1, a free play exercise involving the Navy-Marine Corps team, was the first major attempt to develop and execute a tactical scheme compatible with the new concepts and weapons pertinent to amphibious warfare. Interested readers may wish to refer to Col Rothwell’s earlier work, “Toward a New Amphibious Tactical Concept” (MCG, Jul83, p. 63), which lays much of the theoretical groundwork for the concepts discussed here, as well as Col Bruce G. Brown’s excellent twopart series, “Maneuver Warfare Roadmap” (MCG, Apr82, p. 42, and May82, p. 80), an early look at the doctrinal implications of maneuver warfare on amphibious operations.

1000, D-1. Only 10 hours before the first elements will land. The officers are assembled in the flagship wardroom-some in woodlands, others in khakis. Commander Amphibious Task Force (CATF) and Commander Landing Force (CLF) are at the end of the long table flanked by staffers and commanders seated in no apparent pattern. CATF and CLF are about to take a major practical step into the future of amphibious warfare. The G-3 stands at the other end and, in an understatement that masks the significance of the event, says, “Gentlemen, the purpose of this meeting is to decide where we will land.”

The Concept

Critics of traditional amphibious assaults have challenged their merit in the face of the mismatch between today’s reduced seabased fire support and the standoff defenses of even modestly sophisticated potential foes. The answer, they generally agree, is to replace the direct approach with the indirect. Emphasis should shift from overwhelming firepower and massive daylight assaults against heavily defended beaches to stealth, speed, and nighttime, over-the-horizon (OTH) launches.

New items of equipment, such as the air cushion landing craft (LCAC), tilt-rotor Osprey (MV-22), remotely piloted vehicle (RPV), and light armored vehicle (LAV), will play big roles in the new tactics, but the specifics of their employment are not clear. This is not for a lack of ideas. Papers have been written, speeches delivered, arguments joined-and rice bowls threatened. Will the LCAC be an assault craft or a logistics platform? Does the time-honored assault amphibian vehicle (AAV) still have an assault role, or will its slow water speed require amphibious ships to venture too close to shorebased defensive fires? Even if AAVs are too slow, what is the alternative, given the midterm shortage of LCACs and supporting amphibious lift? Are LAVs too lightly armed-and armored-to have a significant role in amphibious assaults? Will a tactic that emphasizes stealth, speed, and night OTH launches be too complex to succeed? Good questions all, and ones without clearcut answers.

KERNEL BLITZ 88-1 was perhaps the first major attempt to develop and execute a tactical scheme compatible with the new concepts and weapons systems of amphibious warfare. It was a free-play exercise conducted by Amphibious Group 3 and the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) in Southern California during February 1988. The major event was an amphibious assault in the fictitious country of Orange (Camp Pendleton) to seize a beachhead and permit the uninterrupted flow of follow-on forces. The ground combat element (GCE), Regimental Landing Team 5 (RLT-5), included two active duty infantry battalions (1/5, 2/9), one Reserve infantry battalion (2/25), one direct support artillery battalion (2/11), a tank company, LAV company, AAV company, reconnaissance company, and an engineer company. Orange forces, a reinforced mechanized infantry battalion, had the mission of defending the 17-mile coastline of Camp Pendleton. They were not told exactly where or when the attack would come.

Free play invited innovative offensive tactics, but limitations of fast ship-to-shore lift could not be ignored. Two LCACs and two composite helicopter squadrons (19 CH-46s, 8 CH-53s) were too few for a true OTH launch. They were, however, sufficient to test a new type of assault plan that included many characteristics applicable to future OTH launches. At the same time, the assault plan also served as a practical model for testing new approaches to amphibious operations with current capabilities. While the results may be only a step in the evolution of amphibious doctrine, they are of sufficient significance to warrant careful study by all students of our profession.

The assault plan had six key elements:

* Multiple options. Rather than a traditional, set scheme there were three landing options, each with a different beach and initial objectives. For planning purposes, one option was designated as primary, but all were feasible. The decision on which plan would be used was delayed until noon on D-1.

* Simple landing plan. Even though the assault could take place over any one of three widely separated beaches, the composition, sequence, and timing of surface and helicopter waves were identical for all options. From the ship-to-shore perspective, only the beach and helicopter landing zone (HLZ) locations were different. Of course, the assault forces would have to adjust their schemes of maneuver ashore to complete their mission from different starting points, and this caused some concern. Since detailed rehearsals for each option, though desirable, were impractical, briefings, sandtable exercises, and careful coordination would be essential.

* Avoiding enemy strength. This tactic embodied the indirect approach. The decision of where to land would depend on information about enemy weaknesses provided by a comprehensive system of human, optical, and electronic intelligence gatherers.

* Night landing. Picking the least heavily defended beach was not enough. The landing had to be made in darkness to reduce the chance that defenders would detect and react to the attack.

* Isolation of the main landing beach. Beyond assaulting a lightly or undefended beach under the cover of darkness, it would be necessary to isolate the beach to ensure the rapid buildup of surface landed, heavy combat forces: tanks, AAVs, and artillery. Assault forces landed by LCACs and helicopters before H-hour would accomplish this important task.

* Rapid seizure of inland objectives. Finally, the assault plan called for the uninterrupted attack of surface landed, heavy combat power from the high water mark toward inland objectives. It would not be easy for an armored task force to pass through the helicopter landed elements isolating the beach at night. But waiting for daylight might allow any advantage gained to shift back to the defender, something that could not be permitted.

The Options

Tactical surprise for a MEB-size amphibious exercise at Camp Pendleton is easier said than done. Although the coastline between Oceanside and San Clemente is 17 miles of largely uninterrupted beach, steep cliffs, built-up areas, and state parkland overlook most of the shoreline, severely restricting movement inland. Interstate 5 and a railroad parallel the entire ocean front. While not significant obstacles for a combat assault, in exercises they can be crossed at only a few bridges and underpasses, futher limiting the choices of landing sites.

In recent years virtually all large amphibious exercises at Camp Pendleton have landed over one of two beaches on the southern half of the base (Figure 1). White Beach, the more southerly, is some 1,700 meters wide. It is partially backed by marshes that channelize vehicles and also serve as nesting grounds for an endangered species of seabird, the least tern. These characteristics limit the training value of White Beach. By default, Red Beach, about 2,500 meters to the northwest, has become the most commonly used Camp Pendleton landing site.

Landing force planners expected a free play defender with a strategy of defending the shoreline to contest Red Beach and, most likely, White Beach as well. Nevertheless, the dearth of good landing beaches and the chance that the enemy might not choose to defend the shoreline led them to select Red Beach as the primary landing site and White Beach as an alternative.

The search for additional landing options created interesting risk versus potential gain challenges. Most of the remaining coastline was backed by 30- to 50-foot cliffs that severely restricted movement inland. Assault forces might have to attack in column along the narrow shoreline to Red or White Beach before finding an exit for vehicles, hardly a popular idea. On the other hand, tactical surprise was most likely at remote locations.

The risk became more manageable with the discovery of a little known, unimproved road from a remote stretch of beach to the crest of the cliffs that loomed about 100 meters beyond the high water mark. Tanks, AAVs, and, hopefully, self-propelled artillery might be able to reach the high ground over this road, although a better exit would be needed to offload 5th MEB’s logistical train. Of course, a surface assault would likely fail unless the cliffs were undefended or firmly under the control of the landing force. With this in mind planners chose Gold Beach, some 7,500 meters northwest of Red Beach, as the third landing option.

The Decision

The alternatives now identified, emphasis turned to the selection process. CATF and CLF needed timely answers to two questions: Had recent storms obstructed the normally good offshore approaches to any of the beaches? Where was the enemy weakestnot just at the water’s edge, but along the routes to inland objectives as well? A coordinated collection effort by all ATF and LF intelligence gathering agencies and a dependable shore-to-ship communications system were essential.

In the aggregate, the collection plan was well coordinated. Reconnaissance battalion teams assigned to the GCE were responsible for observing potential HLZs and enemy defenses along routes to the ATF Objective “S”-the Camp Pendleton Air Station. On the night of D-5, 7 teams launched in combat rubber raiding craft (CRRC) from USS Harry W. Hill (DD 986) some 10 miles at sea. After navigating to the surf line, the Marines swam ashore, buried their sea entry gear, and began their treks to reconnaissance areas of operations high in the coastal hills (Figure 2). CATF-controlled SEAL teams infiltrated by CRRC from a submarine on the night of D-3 to positions near Red and Gold Beaches. Lacking a third team for White Beach, the SEALs on Red Beach were assigned double duty.

Finally, two of CLF’s force reconnaissance teams also launched at night from a submarine. Their mission was to reconnoiter two potential LCAC landing sites, CLZ-A to the north and CLZ-E on the southern extremity of the Camp Pendleton littoral. Depending on the assault beach decision, a reinforced LAV company was to be landed before Hhour at one of these locations.

All SEAL and reconnaissance teams completed their insertions without incident.

Dependable transmission of information to the CATF, CLF, and GCE staffs was a challenge. SEAL teams were the most capable. They communicated reliably with AN/PRC-117 VHF radios over the covered special warfare net. As a backup they were prepared to use AN/PSC-3 radios and a satellite link. The shortcoming of their system was that the special warfare net terminated aboard the primary control ship (USS Duluth, LPD 6). Reports had to be relayed from Duluth to CATF and CLF on the flagship (USS Tripoli, LPH 10). A second relay was necessary to pass their findings from Tripoli to the GCE aboard USS Germantown (LSD 42).

Communications for Marine reconnaissance elements were less effectual. Force reconnaissance teams carried only AN/PRC-104 HF voice radios for shore-to-ship transmission over the landing force intelligence/recon net While that net reached decisionmakers on both Tripoli and Germantown, secure voice transmissions were at best extremely slow and sometimes unintelligible. Teams from the reconnaissance battalion had an even greater challenge. They sent reports over AN/PRC-77 VHF radios to a communications coordination and radio relay team high in the coastal hill range. From there the information was sent seaward by a URC-104 (SATCOM) radio over the MAGTF command net Unfortunately, that net, which doubled as the ATF command net, was heavily used. Tightly scheduled reports every four hours made the best of a poor situation. Both CATF and GCE guarded the MAGTF command net, CATF by ship’s SATCOM and the GCE by an AN/ PSC-3 radio. Successful communications for the GCE depended upon the ability of a Marine on a weather deck of Germantown to point his handheld antenna at the proper point in the sky as the ship steamed a sinuous course. Not an easy task.

Human intelligence gathering was supplemented by the RPV Federal Aviation Administration regulations prohibited RPVs from flying through the busy southern California coastal airways, so missions were flown from a strip ashore, and helicopter couriers brought videotapes to the flagship. This artificiality notwithstanding, RPVs proved their value. Their videotapes provided a perspective that in some ways was superior to verbal reports.

While the intelligence gathering effort on KERNEL BLITZ 88-1 molded available assets to do the job, improvements are needed to support multiple-option landing plans:

* There must be greater integration of the capabilities and employment of SEAL and landing force reconnaissance teams. SEALs are more attuned to seeking answers to questions about offshore approaches, while the force reconnaissance teams concentrate primarily on indications of enemy activity. Multiple-option landings require that both agencies be prepared to perform the tasks normally assigned to the other and that plans for their use be made jointly by a CATF-CLF-GCE team.

* Covered, HF voice nets used by reconnaissance elements should be replaced with either HF continuous wave (CW) or, more desirably, satellite nets. CATF, CLF, and the GCE must recieve all reports directly.

* CATF, CLF, and the GCE need a downlink to receive RPV video signals.

By 1000, D-1, the picture developed from the collection effort was sufficiently clear for CATF and CLF to make a decision. Shifting sandbars clogged the approaches to White Beach, eliminating it from consideration. As suspected, Red Beach appeared to be heavily defended. SEALs reported large numbers of troops in the vicinity. An RPV videotape highlighted a newly constructed tank obstacle running the entire length of the beach that, surprisingly, had gone unreported by the SEALs. In contrast, offshore approaches to Gold Beach remained clear, and neither SEALs, RPVs, nor RF-4Bs reported any enemy presence. Tactical surprise seemed possible.

Shortly before noon, only eight hours before the first assault forces were to land, CATF and CLF changed the landing site from Red to Gold Beach.

The Assault

2000, D-1. Startled by the roar of engines outside her rented Special Services trailer on the San Onofre Recreation Beach, an Orange officer’s wife rushed to the window. At the water’s edge a large craft, which she recognized as an LCAC, had touched down. In contrast to the din that was now almost deafening, the craft’s approach had been surprisingly quiet. By steering a course perpendicular to the shoreline the LCAC pilot had kept his engines directed seaward. Masked by the pounding surf he had closed to within 1,000 meters of touchdown before anyone on land had heard his craft.

The LCAC began to discharge its cargo-four LAVs and a small truck that the woman recognized as a HMMWV (high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle) or Humvee. Immediately seaward, a second LCAC waited with a similar load.

Mindful that her husband and his battalion had the mission of defending Camp Pendleton from an amphibious assault, she telephoned the alarm to his battalion’s duty officer, “The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!”

It was the defenders first knowledge that the attack was underway.

At his field command post, the Orange battalion commander received the duty officer’s report with ambivalence. Were the Marines really landing over the restricted northern beaches, or was this merely a diversion to draw him away from his prepared positions at Red and White Beaches? Even if it was not a ruse, how could he mount an unrehearsed counterattack in darkness against an undefined enemy at least 12 miles away?

The fog of war plays no favorites. He decided to remain in place.

While the Orange commander considered his options, three turnaround LCAC sorties landed the remainder of a uniquely configured reinforced LAV company. In addition to its own LAVs (12 LAV-25s and 2 logistic variants) and 2 HMMWVs, there were 7 RLT-5 TOW vehicles. Beyond their antiarmor firepower, TOW thermal sights provided a night vision capability that LAV companies currently lack. Additional attachments included a combat engineer platoon to provide reconnaissance expertise and closein protection, a forward air controller team, an artillery forward observer team, and a naval gunfire team. This force would be a powerful weapon throughout the exercise.

Soon after the initial touchdown, the first LAV platoon with TOWs attached crossed under I-5 and the railroad and headed southeast (Figure 3). Using the TOW thermal sights, it silently advanced some 8,500 meters in 90 minutes, sweeping through the HLZ on the coastal plain above Gold Beach. The platoon reported no enemy contact.

The first turnaround LCAC filled out a second LAV/TOW platoon that began to screen inland along the Basilone Road corridor. Near Homo Summit, about 10,000 meters from the CLZ, it made the first hard contact. An Orange company commander and 35 of his men were surprised to find themselves prisoners so far from the shore.

The main assault was still several hours away, but, with minor exceptions, the landing unfolded as painstakingly practiced during map and sandtable exercises (Figure 4).

2400, D-1. With the aid of terminal guidance from the LAVs, helicopters from HMM-161 landed the assault elements of 2/25 into a zone above Gold Beach. Still no contact along the coast. With the cliffs secured, a successful surface assault by the armored task force seemed certain.

H-Hour, D-Day. The first wave of AAVs churned ashore at 0100 carrying assault elements of 1/5. Within five minutes it was joined by a second, similar wave. By H+40, 17 tanks along with Beachmaster and Landing Force Shore Party teams had landed. Self-propelled artillery would follow on the first turnaround landing craft. Quickly, a rifle company in AAVs attacked southeasterly along the narrow beach toward Red Beach. A tank-mech team reached the high ground overlooking Gold Beach via the little known, unimproved road, passed through 2/25’s perimeter, and attacked on a parallel axis above the company in AAVs. A third tank-mech team with LAVs leading the way began a deliberate attack toward initial inland objectives to the south (Figure 5). With tactics similar to those used in the landing, it probed several routes, seeking the path of least enemy resistance to RLT Objective “J” that dominated ATF Objective “S”-the Camp Pendleton Air Station. From Objective “J” it could support a daylight helicopterborne assault by 2/9 to seize the air station.

Continued pressure kept the defenders from recovering from their initial surprise. Facing a twopronged armored-mech attack on their flank and rear. Orange forces withdrew from Red Beach after only light resistance. Quickly, Beachmaster and Landing Force Shore Party teams closed Gold Beach and shifted south to unload the remainder of 5th MEB at the more suitable Red Beach.

As reconnaissance teams had warned, lead mech elements met stiff resistance in the canyons that were the most likely avenues of approach inland. But Orange forces could not be everywhere. Other 1/5 assault elements soon found undefended routes to RLT Objective “J” dominating the airfield. By the end of D-day, 24 hours ahead of schedule, a helicopterborne assault by 2/9 had seized the ATF objective.

With one significant change and several miner variations, RLT-5 continued to base its tactical decisions on actual intelligence for the remaining six days of the free-play exercise. The major change was in the focus of the intelligence gathering effort. Rather than seeking holes in Orange defenses. reconnaissance elements sought to fix Orange forces so that they could be destroyed by air, artillery, or direct attack. The reinforced LAV company was particularly effective in that role. Working in general support of the RLT, it ranged far forward of the front lines to provide intelligence and bring fire on the enemy. Maneuvering at night with the aid of TOW thermal sights, LAVs completely disrupted the Orange commander’s plan to mass his armor for a major strike against the beach support area. The marriage of LAVs, TOWs, engineers, and fire support teams yielded far greater capabilities than anyone imagined.

Conclusions

Experiences from KERNEL BLITZ 88-1 will not end the debate over amphibious assault tactics. They did not prove the superiority of indirect tactics over the time-honored direct approach, but they did confirm four important points:

* Complex, flexible amphibious assault plans are manageable by both the Navy and the landing force.

* Tactical surprise can be achieved, even in unlikely circumstances.

* Reconnaissance is critical; coordinated collection planning and improved, interoperable communications are a must.

* LAVs, adequately reinforced, add a powerful new dimension to the landing force.

These “lessons” give confidence and direction as we look toward the future for amphibious operations.

by Col Michael D. Wyly

Marine Corps tactical and operational doctrine is aged beyond relevance to modem war. It would be difficult to show that the Fleet Marine Force Manuals (FMFMs) on the Marine division through squad ever were of value in combat They say little of tactics. Beyond defining terms, describing control measures, and establishing some procedures that are as likely to bring about defeat as victory, they serve little purpose. We need to change. Quantico has been restructured. Now is the time for the revolutionary change we need.

Existing FMFMs are categorized by unit size; that is, there is a book called FMFM 6-1 for the division, another, FMFM 6-2, for the regiment, another for the battalion, and so on. Within each book, one finds subdivisions generally running along the lines of offensive, defensive, and amphibious operations, none of which is particularly meaningful.

First of all, it is needless to publish a separate book for each echelon of command. After all, the battalion will not abide by one tactical concept while its parent regiment employs another. Needless structure is appended to our tactics the moment we say that only battalion and higher normally employ the mobile defense, that only companies and higher normally hold out reserves, or that any tactical employment is to be exercised at one echelon but not another. It is the situation and not the size of the friendly unit or the seniority of its commander that dictates what is best to do in combat The notion that there are “normally” correct solutions to problems in combat is misleading. Perhaps it was the expectation of “normal” conditions that led to our loss in Beirut in 1983.

Under the present set of doctrinal manuals, it is particularly awkward to change any of our FMFMs. If the officer responsible for FMFM 6-3, The Marine Infantry Battalion, makes any change at all, we then have the ridiculous situation of having one doctrine for battalion and possibly a conflicting one for the regiment. The ensuing difficulty in making changes has been one of the factors that has kept Marine doctrine out of date. Rather than complete the slow, painful process of change, we have remained static.

The categorization by ground unit has become less relevant, also, because we train more and more as Marine airground task forces (MAGTFs), and plan to fight that way. Our FMFMs should be made relevant to MAGTFs, not regiments and battalions. Basic FMFMs on warfighting should be equally relevant to infantry, aviation, engineers, artillery, and tanks.

The separate sections on amphibious operations included in each manual can be traced to the same era when the junior School became Amphibious Warfare School and when Marine expeditionary forces were changed to Marine amphibious forces. The Marine Corps felt compelled to justify its existence in the late 1960s and early 1970s and clung to amphibious warfare as its raison d’etre. This was a mistake borne of ignorance. Had we not been so willing to compromise sound military thinking in deference to politics we might have realized that amphibious warfare is not a specialty separated from tactical and operational concepts, ashore or afloat.

Defensive and offensive tactics cannot neatly be separated one from another. In fast-moving combat, a commander may employ a combination of both simultaneously. Whether a force is on the offensive or defensive is not always readily identifiable, unless the tactics employed are rigid and set piece.

First of all, we must scrap FMFMs 6-1 through 6-5. No book should be heeded to tell a Marine how to fight the various elements of the division, the regiment, the battalion, etc. To say how is to provide too much structure. Let the tables of organization define unit structure. If a commander cannot decide what to do with the units given him, he should be relieved and sent back to study tactics. One who knows about tactics can make such determinations without being told how.

Modem Marine Corps doctrine should center around a single manual to set forth how we fight Capt R. Scott Moore’s “Bridging the Doctrinal Gap” (MCG, Apr88, p. 47) provides an excellent basis. Hypothetically, suppose we publish our basic doctrinal philosophy in a new FMFM 6-0, entitled Marine Combat Principles. I would suggest three additional manuals, divided according to the levels of war that have proved useful for conceptualization and study: strategy, the operational art, and tactics. I would entitle the manuals: FMFM 6-1, Strategic Concepts for Employment of Marines; FMFM 6-2, Operational Level Doctrine for MAGTFs; and FMFM 6-3, Marine Tactics. Each should be read by all Marine leaders from the division down to the squad. We are, after all, one Corps, and we should all speak the same language.

FMFM 6-0, Marine Combat Principles, could follow along the lines suggested in Capt Moore’s article mentioned above; that is, the universal principles that should govern all Marine operations would be set down as the Marine Corps’ doctrinal “battlefield philosophy” or “approach to combat” (quotations from Capt Moore). Capt Moore’s principles-“know the commander’s intent, focus on the enemy, create a dilemma, maximize combined arms, and be unpredictable”-serve as an excellent starting point Rather than “maximize combined arms,” I would have been inclined to say “integrate combined arms for maximum effect” in order to reject the notion that more is necessarily better. History’s great combined arms practitioners-Genghis Khan, Gustavus Adolphus, and Heinz Guderian-seemed to be intent on integrating the various arms into a single team more than maximizing their use. Capt Moore clearly understands this, as he states, “Fire support . . . is an integral component that can be maneuvered as readily as a tank.”

FMFM 6-1, Strategic Concepts for Employment of Marines would be but a brief pamphlet Marines are not expected to make strategy. But they must understand it Without the context in which battles are being fought, it is easy to lose direction, to employ tactics that are overly destructive or not destructive enough, or to choose the wrong battles. FMFM 6-1 would simply examine the ways in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff would be likely to employ Marines. I would suggest subsections on topics such as deep intervention aimed at destruction of enemy forces, amphibious turning movements (for example, Inchon), amphibious landings in support of major ground campaigns (such as Patton employed in conjunction with his drive along Sicily to Messina), seizure of ports and shorelines, seizure of airfields, counterguerrilla operations, and counterterrorisna. Some general guides might also be included, such as the wisdom of designating a strategic main effort and strategic reserve. Also, strategic objective ought to be defined and discussed.

FMFM 6-2, Operational Level Doctrine for MAGTFs, would be much more detailed. It should be worthy of study by all officers, including very senior ones. Topics treated in depth would include the subject of maneuver itself, not only defining the term but explaining it, using examples from actual campaigns. Other topics would include speed and its advantages; attrition and its minor usefulness within a maneuver scheme and its futility in most cases; the operational offensive compared to the operational defensive and how the two can merge into the defensive-offensive; the role of battles and consideration when to engage and when not to; operational reconnaissance; and the operational reserve and the main effort at the operational level.

FMFM 6-3, Tactics for Marines, would be the most detailed and should be read and studied by all Marines, most importantly, junior officers and noncommissioned officers. But senior officers would have to understand it Though they would be less likely to employ forces at the tactical level, they must understand the tremendous latitude junior leaders need to fight modern war. The starting point for this manual would, of course, be mission order tactics, for it is upon this concept that all tactics in maneuver warfare are based. More important than whether tactical deployments can be diagrammed to look like the sketch of the envelopment, the frontal assault, or the penetration-or for that matter, one of the defensive postures-is that the lowest level commander act against the ‘enemy in the best way possible without waiting for orders. Essential also is that the subordinate’s initiatives fit within his commander’s intent. Once that is clearly explained, the tactics manual would discuss such topics as the infiltration attack, fluidity in the defense, the tactical defensive-offensive, the merits and demerits of getting into the enemy’s rear versus going against his front, and strength against weakness (“soft-spot tactics”). “Objective” would be defined at the tactical level and numerous examples of possible objectives drawn from real battles would be cited. Tactical reconnaissance, the tactical reserve, and the main effort at the tactical level would all be described in depth.

A section must be devoted to the subject of fire suppression. What do artillery and air do to the enemy? What have they done in history? I did not understand this when I went to Vietnam. I found out. I later discovered the lessons had been learned back in 1915 when I came home and studied military history. Why had the Marine Corps not taught me? It should have. But little mind was paid to history at Quantico in the 1960s.

A final section of Tactics for Marines, perhaps an appendix, might define and standardize a few control measures. But these must never be central to the study of tactics. It is high time that we allowed thinking about how to undo the enemy to replace our focus on how to control our own forces. Control is not our main problem. Commander’s intent is replacing control as a concept. The uncontrolled subordinate commander, acting within his commander’s intent, as did Nelson at Cape St. Vincent and Copenhagen, and Patton in relieving Bastogne, is of far greater value than the commander closely controlled or restrained. Wars are hardly won through restraint Control, then, seems an unfortunate fixation. Most of our doctrine on control measures would be better scrapped than perpetuated. Only by eradicating the old baggage will we get the clean slate we need to revolutionize doctrine.

So much of future warfare seems bound somehow to guerrillas and terrorists, so much so that psychological operations will be important for the rest of our lifetimes. They must be dealt with in our new FMFMs.

None of these new manuals would have a separate section entitled “maneuver warfare.” Nothing could be less appropriate. All our doctrine will be maneuver warfare. The term maneuver warfare, after all, has merely been a substitute for modern war, or faster moving tactics, or relevant tactics. It has been a name for the new, a way of saying it is time for change. The atomic bomb, after all, did not make the study of the art of war obsolete. Thinkers in the Pentagon in the 1950s thought that it did but now we know better. Korea and Vietnam proved that. We now must learn from those less-than-victories and move on, as professional armies always must

Our manuals must be readable. They must be more than listings of “principles” that have bored students for years. For tactics, operations, and strategy are the heart of our profession. Whether you are a logistician, an engineer, an aviator, an artilleryman, an infantryman, or a tanker, we are in business for one purpose: to win war. So war is what we all must understand. Our various specialties should follow an understanding of war. It cannot work the other way around.

By William S. Lind

Last month, we took a look at what military reform means for the Marine Corps in five areas: concepts and doctrine, equipment, personnel, training, and organization. In each area, we gave some examples of problems and some possible solutions.

Throughout that discussion a major question was left untouched. Why have these problems arisen? Deficient doctrine, unrealistic training, personnel policy that generates tremendous turbulence-such problems do not arise from nothing. They have roots and causes. Unless we can discern those roots and causes and move to change them, we have little hope of fixing the superstructure problems that grow from them. Military reform demands we get at the disease, not just the symptoms.

Reformers answer the “why” question on two levels. The first is the institutional level. Four institutions bear major responsibility for the problems we see in the superstructure: the officer corps, the research and development (R&D) and procurement processes, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Congress.

There is relatively little the Marine Corps can do to correct deficiencies in the latter three institutions. Because of the Constitutional separation of powers, only Congress can reform Congress. The Marine Corps has relatively little influence over the way the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) conducts its business, and only slightly more on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Few R&D or procurement programs are solely or even primarily Manne Corps programs.

But even in these areas, the Marine Corps can undertake or press for some reforms. For example, one of the main weaknesses of the current R&D process is the absence of thorough, honest operational testing of new weapons. Such testing cannot be “simulated” with computers; it demands shooting weapons at real targets and shooting at them with actual threat weapons. The absence of such testing (or, in some cases, the rigging of the tests to give the developers the positive results they want) is a major reason why we get ineffective weapons like Dragon and Maverick.

What can the Marine Corps do? It can do its own realistic and honest operational testing of any weapon it is considering procuring. If the weapon does not pass the test, the Corps can refuse to buy it.

Again, while the Marine Corps can undertake some reforms that touch on such larger institutions as the R&D process, its influence over them is limited. But there is another institution it can do a great deal to reform: the Marine officer corps. From the military reform perspective, three officer corps problems are of central importance: careerism, bureaucracy, and military incompetence.

Careerism is a deadly danger to any military organization. If an officer corps comes to think primarily about promotion, the country it serves and the men it leads are both in serious trouble.

If a military organization is to be effective in combat, it needs officers whose first thought is service, not self. They must see their work as a calling, not a job. They must prize such qualities as strength of character because without it they will not be able to make the swift, bold decisions combat demands. They must have moral as well as physical courage: willingness to tell superiors they are wrong, to be honest bearers of bad news, to take and assign responsibility, and to give subordinates room for initiative, accepting the errors and failures this sometimes brings. They must have the courage to be leaders of change when change is required and to put the long-term good of the country and the Marine Corps above the short-term interests of their particular specialty, project, or shop. They must also be men of imagination and creativity, because combat is an art.

Careerism fatally undermines these necessary qualities. It nourishes instead the yes-man, the office politician, the “milicrat,” and the courtier. It rewards those whose main concern is “looking good,” rather than being good. It favors those who are masters of detail rather than men of vision, those who excel in “keeping all the rice bowls filled” rather than leaders of change.

Today, the rot of careerism has spread widely in the Marine Corps. Why has this happened? A major cause goes beyond the Corps itself: it is the up-or-out promotion system. Up-or-out virtually compels officers to worry about their careers because unless they are promoted, they must leave the Service. A company commander or fighter pilot cannot choose to remain a captain through his time in Service, as he can in most foreign militaries. He must get himself promoted or leave. Up-or-out thus institutionalizes careerism.

On its own, the Marine Corps cannot eliminate the up-or-out system. But civilian military reformers are advocating its elimination, and the Marine Corps could join in that advocacy. Doing so would considerably enhance the chances of getting Congress to look seriously at the problem.

However, up-or-out is not the sole reason careerism has spread so widely in the Marine Corps. Up-or-out has been with us for more than 40 years, yet many Marines can remember when the Corps was much less afflicted with careerism than it is today. Careerism has grown and spread in part because many Marines accept and even admire it. They believe it is necessary, legitimate, and “smart.” With such acceptance, careerism is bound to flourish.

Marines can change this. They can change their own attitudes toward careerism in themselves and in others. They can make it unacceptable, through peer pressure, for Marines to put their own careers above their duties, or at least to do so openly. In this sense, the key to reducing careerism is changing the way Marines think about it.

A second major problem in the officer corps is bureaucracy. It is evident everywhere: in grossly overstaffed headquarters, in demands for volumes of reports, in developing battle plans by committee, in the rapid turnover of command billets as officers fight for one of the few real jobs, and in the way decisions are driven to ever-higher levels, leaving the junior commander with little scope for initiative.

What causes this officer bureaucracy? The officer surplus. Above the company grades, there are far more officers than there are real jobs for them-jobs that actually need to be done. For example, the Marine Corps has 356 command positions for lieutenant colonels, but more than 1,600 people in that rank. It has only 3 divisions and 3 wings, but more than 70 generals.

What do the surplus officers do? They generate paper, they demand paper, they make decisions (or fail to) by committee, they create vast numbers of makework jobs; in short, they produce bureaucracy, in large quantities.

The only solution to the problem of officer-generated bureaucracy is to reduce drastically-by at least 50 percent-the number of officers above the company grades. While this policy should be DOD-wide, the Marine Corps can take the initiative. Congress has already directed some very small reductions in the size of the officer corps. It would probably respond favorably to a request from the Marine Corps that it be allowed to go further.

A third officer corps problem is military incompetence. The Marine Corps, with our other Armed Services, has too many officers who are good managers, know process and methods, administrate well, are physically courageous and well-intentioned, and know little or nothing about the art of war. They lack a central ability of the soldier: the ability to think through a military situation, to practice the tactical and operational arts. Such a person, whatever his merits in other respects, is militarily incompetent.

One specific element of military incompetence must be noted because it is both a part and a cause of that incompetence. Many Marine officers are professionally illiterate. They are familiar with neither the classical nor the current literature on war. Many do not even read the Gazette. Few are familiar with the guiding ideas of their profession. For example, modern maneuver warfare is 70 years old; it was fully developed in the German army by 1918. But it is new to many Marines. Why? Because they read little or no military history.

You would not go to a lawyer who never read law, nor to a doctor who did not study medicine. But we expect Americans to entrust their sons to officers who have not studied war.

Many Marines will undoubtedly be offended and angry that the issue of military incompetence is even raised. But officers have a responsibility to look beyond their personal emotions. The issue is too important to pass by, however unpleasant it may be. The price of military incompetence can be high. Or is Beirut already forgotten?

Why has military incompetence become a major problem? A large part of the answer is deficiencies in Marine military education. Two deficiences are of particular importance. First, the Marine Corps’ education system does not impress the importance of reading and ideas on Marine officers. It does not inculcate the habit of self-study, of the constant reading and thinking about the art of war that has characterized most great soldiers. It does not impart to Marines the understanding that you must know the guiding ideas of your field if you are to be a professional. It does not include, in the Marine officer’s self-image, the picture of the thinker.

This is primarily the fault of Officers Candidate School (OCS) and The Basic School (TBS). These are the schools that give a Marine officer his basic self-image, the picture of what it means to be a Marine. From the beginning, that must include the mental and intellectual aspects of officership. Currently, it does not.

The second deficiency is mainly the responsibility of Amphibious Warfare School (AWS) and Command and Staff College (C&SC). Both schools teach methodical battle. As noted in Part I of this article, methodical battle is the opposite of maneuver warfare, and it was the central French error that led to disaster in 1940. Nevertheless, it is what both schools teach. They teach it because most of the instruction is in what to do and what to think, not how to think. It is form, formats, processes, and terminology. The guiding rule is, “Don’t worry about the tactics, just get the format right.” It produces graduates who will prepare perfectly formatted bad orders, who in combat will focus not on the situation and the enemy, but on what they were taught on their own methods and processes. It is the French all over again, and it will again result in defeat.

What reforms are necessary to deal with these deficiencies and graduate militarily competent officers? A few important ones include:

* From the first day of both OCS and TBS, students must be taught that Marines read and think. Upon acceptance to OCS, the student should receive a book he must read before he comes-not Clausewitz, but perhaps The Forgotten Soldier* The goal should not be just to read a certain number of books, but to ingrain the habit of serf-study. The graduate should leave knowing that he will read, talk, listen, and think about the art of war on a regular basis for the rest of his days as a Marine officer.

* Equally from the first day, OCS and TBS should balance techniques and tactics. Currently, virtually the whole emphasis is on techniques. Instead, techniques must be taught with tactics, with the creative, imaginative side of the profession. That means encouraging initiative, risk-taking, and thinking for yourself; critiquing reasoning more than solutions; using mission-type orders with the students; and making some training free play. Unless these schools give lieutenants a taste of the chaos and confusion of combat, of the need and way to make decisions on their own in the fog and friction of war, they have not done their jobs.

* Most of the current curriculums at AWS and C&SC should be made self-study through correspondence courses. Students should have to pass entrance exams to get into the schools, and the exams would cover the self-study material. This would ensure they have the necessary terminology, procedural knowledge, etc

The schools themselves should be modeled on the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, KS.** As at that school, the focus should be war games, study of past campaigns, and current campaign planning, all in small group discussions, not lectures. The goal should be to teach the student how to think militarily, how to be a competent commander or operations officer. At AWS, the focus should be tactics; at C&SC, the operational level.

This cannot be done just by changing the formal curriculums and lesson plans. It requires major changes in faculty. Real faculties have deep expertise in the areas they teach. To obtain that, a faculty member’s first year at Quantico should be spent learning his field, under the tutoring of a small, permanent faculty of world-class people. To attract the highest quality officers as faculty, a faculty tour should be well rewarded. For example, a successful tour on the C&SC faculty should be the normal route to a regimental command.

Sound military education will not guarantee military excellence. It also requires careful selection of commanders and operations officers, personnel stability, plenty of training time, and many other changes. But without high quality education, excellence is unlikely and incompetence will continue to be a major problem.

We can see how each of these institutional problems relate to the superstructure problems discussed in Part I last month. If the R&D process does not include realistic, honest operational tests, we are likely to receive equipment that works poorly in combat. If military education is weak, problems in doctrine and concepts will not be noticed. If careerism is rampant, problems that are noticed will be swept under the rug because admitting them will make someone look bad.

But we are still left with a question of why? Why have these institutional problems developed? Why have we failed to tackle problems like careerism-a problem many Marines have long recognized?

These questions bring us to the third and final level of military reform: institutional culture. Over the past few years, many American companies have become interested in the subject of institutional culture because they have seen it is at the root of why they no longer compete effectively. Books such as In Search of Excellence* are really books about institutional culture.

What is institutional culture? It is the attitudes of the people within the organization toward each other and their jobs; its informal rules of behavior; its corporate style and etiquette (e.g., in some organizations, it is “improper” to tell a superior he is wrong); its morals and values-the ones it actually practices, not just what the leadership may preach; its systems of rewards and punishments, and what someone is rewarded or punished for; its guiding ideas, principles, and goals. It is an organization’s slice of the Nation’s culture, and like that larger culture, it is what guides how people live, think, and behave.

Traditionally, institutional culture has been the Marine Corps’ greatest strength. The Corps has had what is known as a “corporative” culture. In a corporative organization, every member shares the institution’s overall goals and purposes and makes them his personal goals and values. He works, not just in his job, but beyond his job to advance those goals and values every way he can. In the Corps, this has meant every Marine is a Marine 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He is a Marine, not a logistician, or an infantryman, or an aviator. He lives being a Marine.

Why is this important? In any organization, there is always pressure to do what is comfortable internally rather than what is competitive externally. There is pressure to serve a particular branch or program or superior rather than the needs and goals of the larger organization. Often this pressure is felt in terms of threats to promotion. It is dangerous pressure because if enough people yield to it, the organization ceases to be competitive in the outside world. If it is a military Service, it loses its ability to fight and win.

The corporative ethic fights this dangerous pressure. At every level, when something is proposed that will “look good” but that won’t work in the outside world, people object. The organization’s leadership, when it is doing its duty, rewards those people and sustains their objections.

This has been the Marine tradition, and it still is with many Marines, especially junior officers. But it is an endangered tradition. The opposite organizational model, the “bureaucratic” model, has been spreading within the Marine Corps.

In the bureaucratic model, the individual focuses not on the organization’s overall goals and purposes but only on his particular job. The job is defined narrowly and rigidly, and the individual is forbidden to look beyond it. The twin mottos of bureaucracy are, “That’s not your job” and “That’s not my job.” The bureaucracy rewards with promotion those who look good, those who put the comfort of their specialty, unit, or superior above the needs of the organization as a whole, especially its need to produce a competitive product.

The bureaucratic model has become common in America. It is one reason why we no longer compete effectively in many fields. It is easy to see how it undermines combat effectiveness in a military Service. Problems such as poor military education, a personnel system that generates turbulence, equipment and training needs that are not met, and the like cannot be identified much less addressed. Doing so would upset rice bowls, make superiors angry, and make important people “look bad.” So the problems fester and grow, and when war comes, the Service and the Nation pay the price in unnecessary casualties and sometimes in defeat.

Bureaucracy is especially dangerous to a military Service. Combat is dominated by uncertainty and rapid change. How do bureaucrats deal with uncertainty and change? Very poorly. They want everything centralized, clear cut, and under their own rigid control. They hate change because it upsets all the comfortable little arrangements they have made inside the Service. Quite simply, there is an inherent and unbridgeable contradiction between bureaucracy and military effectiveness. A bureaucratic Service cannot be highly effective in combat.

Much of the Marine Corps continues to resist the expansion of the bureaucracy. From the battalion down, the Corps is still largely a corporative institution. Some recent changes, such as the formation of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Warfightmg Center at Quantico, are designed to fight bureaucratization. But at higher levels, the growth of bureaucracy is all too obvious, much of it driven by the officer surplus and careerism. Unless its spread is stopped and reversed, it will eventually swallow the whole Corps. When that happens, the real Marine Corps will be gone. Only a facade will be left, a facade that will quickly shatter in war.

The growth of bureaucracy is, from the military reform standpoint, the Marine Corps’ single most serious problem. However, it is not the only problem in the Corps’ institutional culture. Anti-intellectualism is a cultural problem. So is the increasing number of “Yummies”-Yuppie Marine officers-in the junior ranks. Like his civilian counterpart, the Yummie’s values are “You are what you own and what you look like” and “I’m out to get mine.” Marines can and should identify additional problems in the institutional culture because cultural problems are the deepest, most serious, and most difficult problems. They are also usually the most deadly.

You now have at least an outline of what military reform means for the Marine Corps. Clearly, it offers a major challenge. However, it is not a call for revolution, but rather for restoration. The Old Corps, the Marine Corps of the interwar years, was very much like the future Marine Corps military reformers envision. It was a strongly corporative institution; it had a lively intellectual interest in the art of war, evidenced by its development of amphibious doctrine; it was innovative, experimental, and focused on the goal of winning in combat. Naturally, it was different in many specifics. But would the Marines who developed amphibious doctrine not have been quick to seize on ideas such as maneuver warfare and the operational art?

The spirit of the Old Corps is the spirit of the Marines who today are leading the fight for military reform.

Over the last 10 years, the Marine Corps has been engaged in a major debate over maneuver warfare. That debate has been useful and productive, but maneuver warfare is just part of the challenge facing the Marine Corps. While correct doctrine is necessary for winning in combat, doctrine alone does not make a military Service combat effective.

As the pages of the Gazette and the experiences of most Marines attest, there are gaps in many different areas between the Corps’ capabilities and practices and what is needed for winning in combat. Such gaps are evident in training, in weapons, in unit cohesion, and in officer education. Perhaps the most serious is simply the way so little of a Marine’s daily time and effort go to things related to winning in combat. Addressing and closing these gaps-the gap between “looking good” in peacetime and winning in time of war-must be the Marine Corps’ next agenda. It is the agenda of military reform.

Military reform is an effort to bring our defense policies and practices at every level, from the infantry squad through the Pentagon and the Congress, into line with what is important for winning in combat. The focus of military reform is not efficiency, but effectiveness: effectiveness on the field of battle. As the briefing of the Congressional Military Reform Caucus states, “We have two simple goals. First, we want military forces that can win when called upon. Second, we want the support of the American people for such forces, not just for one or two years, but for the long haul.”

Military reform relates to all four Services, to the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and to the Congress. The military reformers have produced an extensive literature detailing problems and potential solutions in each of these areas.

What agenda does military reform offer the Marine Corps? Military reform looks at the Corps on three levels. The first is the superstructure: concepts and doctrine, equipment, personnel, training, and organization. These areas are part of the superstructure not because they are unimportant-each is very important-but because problems in each of them generally derive from deeper, often unseen roots. Part I of this article will examine the Corps’ superstructure. In Part II, we will look at some causes on two additional levels: institutions and institutional culture.

A single article cannot look at all the problems in the superstructure. It can only touch on some representative samples. In each area, Marines are encouraged to identify further problems and possible solutions.

Concepts and Doctrine

Important conceptual and doctrinal challenges facing the Marine Corps include:

* Learning how to do maneuver warfare. Many Marines are familiar with at least some of the basic concepts of maneuver warfare, such as missiontype orders, focus of effort, and throwing strength against weakness. But there is a great difference between having an academic understanding of maneuver warfare and actually being able to do it in combat. The first is necessary for the second, but it is by no means sufficient. Learning how to apply maneuver warfare in combat means major changes in Marine Corps education and training; some of those changes will be discussed later in this article.

* Understanding the operational art. The operational art is the art of using tactical events to strike directly at an enemy’s strategic center of gravity. In that sense, it is the art of the campaign. It is of major importance to Marines because, in many situations, the amphibious campaign is likely to be more important to the Nation than the amphibious assault. The Marine Corps needs to incorporate the operational art into its doctrine, educate at least a cadre of commanders and staff officers in its practice, and attempt it in major war games and command post exercises.

* Adopting true light infantry tactics. Although Marines call themselves light infantry, by historical and world standards they are line infantry. Line infantry tactics derive from French tactics in World War I; true light infantry tactics are descended from the German tactics of 1917-1918.

Adopting light infantry tactics implies major changes from current tactics. The attack is by infiltration; defense controls an area rather than holding a line and relies on ambushes and counterstrokes rather than visible defensive positions. Most fire support is local: machineguns, mortars, and infantry guns (distributed, locally attached artillery). Mobility and high tempo come from high march rates; units must be capable of marching a minimum of 40 kilometers per day on a sustained basis. That, in turn, requires a drastic reduction in the Marine’s load.

In order to adopt true light infantry tactics, Marines need to become familiar with the current literature on the subject, especially Gen Franz UhleWettler’s Battlefield Central Europe- The Danger of Overreliance on Technology by the Armed Forces.* The Corps also needs to begin experimenting with light infantry tactics, perhaps with the formation of a few light infantry training and testing units, and to publish a light infantry tactics operational handbook.

*Avoiding methodical battle. Methodical battle is the opposite of maneuver warfare. It requires its practitioners to focus not on the situation and the enemy but on their own stylized, memorized processes and procedures. In his splendid book on French doctrine between the World Wars, The Seeds of Disaster,** Col Robert Doughty. USA, notes that the fundamental French error was methodical battle. The French learned a “method” of fighting based largely on fire support coordination, and were determined to follow it no matter what the enemy did. Indeed, they were so thoroughly trained in it that they could do nothing else. In 1940, when the Germans drove events at a tempo faster than their method could accommodate, they had no option but collapse and surrender.

When we look at Marine Corps practice today, too often what we see is methodical battle. Thanks largely to the highly methodical combined arms exercise (CAX) at Twentynine Palms and the carefully choreographed Marine Corps combat readiness evaluations, tactics are driven by fire support planning rather than the other way around. Tempo, constrained by detailed orders, by slow-moving fire support coordination techniques, and often by an absence of even the concept of tempo, is very slow. It looks as if the Marine Corps is repeating the French mistake, not so much in its formal doctrine as in the way Marine units actually operate. Methodical battle dominates.

How can the Corps avoid methodical battle? Marines need to understand that combat is dominated by surprise, uncertainty, and rapid change, which no set method can accommodate. Their focus must be outward, on the situation and the enemy, not inward on staff procedures and coordination requirements. They must grasp the idea that tempo is itself a weapon-often the most powerful weapon. Field exercises must avoid the compulsive rigidity and canned solutions of the CAX, instead emphasizing adaptability, improvisation, high, tempo, verbal mission orders, and running mental estimates. Training, like combat itself, must be dominated by the need to deal with a hostile, independent will in an environment of fog and friction.

Equipment

Apart from the aviation wings, the Marine Corps is not heavily equipment oriented, which is good. Overconcern with equipment leads to neglect of leadership, tactics, and realistic training. However, equipment must still be adequate to do the job. In that regard, military reformers inside and outside the Corps question several Marine Corps acquisition programs, including:

* The M198 howitzer. A fine weapon for coastal artillery, the weight and bulk of the M198 make it a questionable artillery piece for an expeditionary force. The Marine Corps seems to realize it made a mistake here, and that it needs a light, modern 105mm howitzer or more heavy mortars or both.

* The M1A1 tank. Maneuver warfare requires tank units with operational, not just tactical, mobility. They must be able to pick up and move 100 kilometers or more into the enemy’s rear when an opportunity appears. With a weight of almost 70 tons, fuel consumption 4 times that of the M60, and dependence on black box maintenance, which is to say, on a secure, well developed line of supply, the M1A1’s operational mobility is poor. With the Israeli modifications-reactive armor, removal of the cupola, extra machineguns, and added protection against fire-the M60 looks like a better as well as a more affordable tank.

There is also a question of whether the Corps, focused as it properly is on Third World conflicts, needs heavy tanks. Should it instead rely on light armored vehicles (LAVs)? The Chadians defeated the Libyans using Toyota pickup trucks and a few French LAVs. The answer to this question is not clear, but it should be thought through carefully before a new tank is purchased.

* The Osprey. The fundamental question about the Osprey goes beyond the specific aircraft. The real issue is whether the helicopter (or tiltrotor) is a viable combat aircraft. In past conflicts, including Vietnam, helicopter losses were high. Even against the minimal opposition encountered on Grenada, we lost about 18 percent of our helicopters. Are we deluding ourselves in thinking we can make helicopter or Osprey assaults without prohibitive casualties? What do modern air defenses and the proliferation of automatic weapons in most armies mean for the survivability of the Osprey? Is the Osprey in effect a bigger, stronger cavalry horse-a system serving a concept whose time has come and gone?

Reformers also raise questions about Marine Corps equipment needs that are not being met. These include:

* A light antitank weapon that works. The Dragon is virtually useless, and the LAAWs small warhead raises serious doubts as to its effectiveness. Without an effective light antitank weapon, Marine infantry and rear areas are seriously at risk. It is difficult to overstate the importance of effective infantry antitank weapons in modern combat, or the disaster that can ensue if the troops come to realize they are defenseless against enemy tanks.

The Marine Corps should make obtaining an effective light antitank weapon one of its top priorities. The AT4 may be such a weapon, but the tests done on it to date are not adequate to know. The Marine Corps should run its own tests on the AT4, firing it at real tanks under combat conditions. If it passes, buy it; if not, start testing other weapons available on the world market.

* A real close air support aircraft. Marine air claims to be specialists in close air support, but the Corps has no suitable close air support aircraft “Fastmovers” do not work well for close air support, because their speed makes it difficult for the pilot to see what is happening on the ground; their guns are too light for effective strafing (which in close support is often more useful than bombing); they have virtually no antiarmor capability (weapons like Maverick simply won’t work under combat conditions); and they are highly vulnerable to automatic weapons fire. The latter point is especially important because, in combat, every soldier shoots at every airplane. Ironically, the Harrier is the most vulnerable aircraft in this respect in the whole U.S. inventory because the fuel is stored around the engine, and it has no self-sealing tanks.

The only real close support aircraft the United States has today is the A-10. That aircraft has some serious deficiencies, but the basic concept is valid: a slow airplane, designed to survive multiple hits from automatic weapons, built around a powerful gun that has a real antiarmor capability. The Marine Corps should join current DOD efforts to design and procure a follow-on to the A-10 that preserves those characteristics while fixing the A10’s specific faults, namely its overlarge size, sluggishness, and high price. Until the Corps acquires such an aircraft, its rhetoric about close air support will be just that: empty words.

* Heavier reliance on off-the-shelf systems. The Marine Corps has traditionally been a leader in finding inexpensive systems that enhance combat performance. The current research and development (R&D) process seldom develops such systems, but the civilian market offers many. What Marine does not know he can buy better boots, packs, and other equipment in the civilian market-often at lower prices than we pay for the “approved” items? Similar opportunities exist with radios, dirt bikes, and even weapons. The current procurement process generally avoids off-the-shelf equipment, not because it is inferior, but because it leaves the R&D bureaucracy out of work. The Marine Corps can cut through this bureaucratic game by purchasing off-the-shelf equipment whenever it can do the job.

Personnel

To military reformers, personnel issues are usually the most important issues. Wars are fought by people, not by weapons. Many Marines rightly believe that the Corps’ most serious problems are personnel problems. Examples include:

* Hollow units. Too often, although a unit looks fully manned on paper, it is actually understrength. Up until a couple years ago, troops were FAPed (troops from operational units reassigned to basethe so-called Fleet Augmentation Program) out to the point where, at times, companies went to the field to train with as few as 60 men, platoons with as few as 12. The recently announced policy of filling the Marine Corps from the bottom up-starting with the combat units-is a promising step toward solving this problem. Current reports indicate actual company strength is up to about 130 men, a major improvement.

* Unacceptable levels of personnel turbulence and turnover. Despite the Precise Personnel Assignment System (PREPASS), personnel turbulence continues at a high rate. This makes unit cohesion impossible and severely undermines training. No unit can train to a high standard when it faces a constant influx of new, largely untrained people. This problem can be solved only by fundamental reform of the personnel system so that units remain stable for at least three years (the normal term of enlistment). The Army’s cohort program, as originally conceived, is one possible answer to this crippling problem.

* Commanders with no recent Fleet Marine Force (FMF) experience. Too often, many years pass between company, battalion, and regimental command. The intervening time is filled with paperpushing jobs that have little relevance to combat. By the time an officer gets another command, his leadership and tactical skills are often rusty at best. Then, he has his new command for only about two years-far too short a time to make himself and his unit proficient The overall result is institutionalized amateurism. The root cause is the officer surplus that we will look at in Part II of this article.

Training

Neither equipment nor doctrine mean much unless a unit is well trained. Marines pride themselves on their training, but that pride is open to question. Problems include:

* Too many restrictions on the drill instructors (DIs) in boot camp. The modern battlefield requires a thinking Marine who can take initiative, not automatons, and boot camp should reflect this. Trainees should be faced with challenges that require them to think for themselves. But this does not mean boot camp should not stress trainees. Combat is the most stressful of all human activities, and basic training should expose Marines to heavy stress. Current regulations largely prevent DIs from doing this. A high school football coach can yell and swear at his players and push them around a bit, but a Marine DI cannot do that with his trainees. DIs should not be brutal, but in trying to prevent brutality we have gone too far in the other direction. We have also taken away too much of the DI’s authority and discretion by making officers oversupervise. We need to move back toward traditional Marine boot camp with its heavy stressing of recruits, with the modification that the stress should require trainees to think, make decisions, and show initiative, not just obey.

* Too little time for platoon and company commanders to train their own units. This is an especially severe problem in the 2d Marine Division. Large unit and individual training are both important, but they cannot be substitutes for letting the platoon and company commander take his unit to the field on its own frequently and regularly. If this means allocating additional resources to acquire new training areas or funding company moves to distant training areas, such actions must be taken. At least in the 2d Marine Division, the current situation is intolerable.

*Insufficient skill in techniques. Techniques are those things that are done by formula. They range from using a weapon, through patrolling, to battle drills. Too many Marines do not perform them to a high standard. The new Battle Drill Guide offers a useful tool for improving performance in techniques, and its application throughout the Corps should raise standards significantly. It is important, however, that the correctly rote and formalized training emphasized by the Guide not be allowed to carry over into tactics, which must never be done by formula or method.

* Insufficient tactical training. Tactical training requires free-play exercises, because nothing else duplicates the hostile, independent will of the enemy that characterizes combat. Only free-play training requires commanders at all levels to confront the unexpected and devise schemes for dealing with it, which is what tactics is all about. Tactics is the opposite of techniques in that it is a free, creative activity in which each situation is different. Only free-play exercises allow such creative freedom.

Unfortunately, free-play exercises remain the exception rather than the rule. Even the 2d Marine Division, which pioneered free-play training in the early 1980s, usually sees only one major free-play exercise each year, and that only involves a portion of the division. Free-play training must become standard Marine practice at all levels. It must begin in The Basic School and must be extended to the CAX by adding a second, nonfiring, aggressed free-play segment MCCRESs should also be free-play. A number of reforms along these lines are currently being considered by the Marine Corps, and prospects for them look promising.

* The infrequency of fluid aviation training. Too often, the aviation wings are allowed to play by their own rules, which say they must be given substantial advance notice of when and where air is to be employed. This allows detailed, slow tempo planning and rigid, centralized control. In war, such an approach is unlikely to be effective. If air is to be useful, it must be able to respond quickly to the unexpected. Aviation units must be fluid enough to support a fluid, high tempo situation on the ground.

A similar problem exists in air-to-air training. Too much of it is simple one versus one or two versus two training; too little, the many versus many situation a real conflict may offer. As past combat and some peacetime exercises have shown, there is a qualitative difference in a many versus many situations.

The Corps needs to make major changes in aviation training. The most important is compelling aviation to respond with little notice to the needs of ground commanders, including the need to mass air, not just provide a couple quick passes.

Organization

Three organizational problems in the Marine Corps provide examples of reformers’ concerns:

* The lack of fighters. The Marine Corps obtains only 3 divisions and 3 aviation wings from almost 200,000 men-a low ratio by world standards. As Maj Mark F. Cancian pointed out in previous Gazettes, the proportion of actual fighters within those few divisions is also low. A force that is supposed to be “lean and mean” has become a vast supply train, maintenance depot, and conglomeration of headquarters looking for a few good fighting men.

* Insufficient tactical mobility. Most Marine ground forces are heavy, slow-moving line infantry. They have neither adequate motorization to be mobile in open terrain nor the close terrain mobility true light infantry obtains from its high march rates. In terms of tactical mobility, most Marine units are fortress troops or siege troops.

To fight maneuver warfare Marines must have good tactical mobility. This suggests reorganization into a mix of true light infantry and motorized/ mechanized units from which a “package” suitable to the terrain can be task organized.

* Marine aviation’s organization as a complete miniair force. Despite the close air support rhetoric, Marine aviation includes a strong fighter force, deep interdiction aircraft, and air transports. History shows that once an aviation service becomes a complete air force, it tends to divorce itself from ground support. Its members think of themselves first as flyers, not soldiers. If Marine aviation is truly to focus on supporting the Marine on the ground, it needs to be reorganized to emphasize that role at the expense of air-to-air and deep interdiction capabilities. It also needs to give Marine pilots enough ground combat training and tours with ground units so they continue to think of themselves as Marines first and pilots second.

Again, the above are examples, not a full discussion of all the problems in the Marine Corps’ superstructure. But they are sufficient to illustrate that there are problems, many of them serious, in each of the superstructure areas: concepts and doctrine, equipment, personnel, training, and organization.

What are the solutions? We have suggested a few here, again as examples. But by definition, superstructure problems derive from deeper, often hidden causes. They can only be resolved by identifying those causes and eliminating them. Next month in Part II, we will look at some of the underlying causes.