The Marine Littoral Regiment’s Missing Link

An unmanned platform for sea denial

The Marine littoral regiment (MLR) has been lauded as a stand-in-force capable of conducting sea denial operations.1 However, the MLR’s ability to close self-contained sea denial kill chains currently is overly reliant on distant, resource-constrained naval and joint support. To remedy this problem, this article advocates the MLR obtain an unmanned air platform for target acquisition in organic sea-denial operations. First, this article will review the operational context and define the constraints of both landbased and naval aviation in supporting the MLR. Next, it will describe the MLR’s current capabilities and advantages in expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO). Lastly, the article will propose the capabilities needed for an unmanned platform to support MLR sea-denial operations, provide a use case, and considerations for its adoption. 

Operational Context
The source of alarm for American military power in the Western Pacific is China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) system, a sheaf of sea, air, and landbased ballistic and cruise missiles extending outward from the Chinese coast, and at the heart of China’s A2/AD system is a recognition of the American way of war. As the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) witnessed the overwhelming defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War via precision munitions and advanced communication technology, a new strategy was necessary to prevent a similar defeat in a future campaign for the PLA historic objective: Taiwan. This consisted of a military build-up of rocket forces, air forces, and long-range scouting capabilities to strike U.S. forces in forward locations where it can build up combat power or the sea lanes that transport said combat power. Today, American bases in the Western Pacific fall under the looming threat of over 4,000 missiles that can impose significant costs to American air and naval forces alike.

Landbased Aviation Constraints
The PLA’s A2/AD poses a significant threat to landbased aviation in the Western Pacific. If hostilities broke out, the PLA could launch a variety of missile systems at airbases, damaging or destroying hangars, runways, aircraft, and vital supplies like fuel and ordnance.2 Landbased aviation in the Western Pacific would be hard-pressed to provide support without the necessary facilities and logistics to support them. Furthermore, joint aircraft, including Marine Corps aircraft, are tasked via the air tasking cycle, a joint 72-hour process of assigning, allocating, and apportioning all aircraft to support varying missions within a joint operations area, which makes them susceptible to competing missions. Air Force, Marine Corps, and Army ISR aircraft will be responsible for more than just missions in support of the MLR. 

Distant support is also dubious. The Air Force boasts a considerable long-range ISR and bomber force—both of which could theoretically support the MLR’s sea denial operations. However, most long-range ISR and bomber aircraft are stationed in the United States, and without forward basing, would face similar constraints. For example, in a Taiwan contingency, B-52s launching from the CONUS were calculated to suffer a severe sortie generation loss of only one sortie per aircraft every 48 hours.3 Extrapolating the challenges to other continental aircraft, the sortie generation rate would not be high enough to reliably depend on for persistent surveillance; additionally, these aircraft would also need to support various missions that would further limit available sorties to support the MLR.

Naval Aviation Constraints
In modern naval operations, the aircraft carrier has been the striking and sensing arm of the Navy while surface combatants have provided close-in defense of air and subsurface threats for the carrier. With the PLA’s A2/AD system able to target ships and aircraft from 1,000 miles to over 3,000 miles,  and due to the quantity and variety of missiles, A2/AD would pose a serious threat in wartime that the carrier strike group must mitigate.4 To do so, the CSG must sail between 1,000 to 1,500 nautical miles away from the Chinese coast, where the variety of anti-ship missiles declines from six variants to only two—the H-6-bomber launched YJ-12s and landbased DF-26s—and subsequently reducing the total number of missile systems capable of targeting it to within a manageable threshold of the CSG’s air defenses.5 As a consequence, naval aviation suffers and constrains the MLR in receiving necessary support for its sea denial mission. 

The Navy’s special mission aircraft are essential to multiple kill chains which is their fatal flaw vis-à-vis the MLR.6 The E-2D is a carrier-launched early warning and control aircraft that can detect and track air targets as well as conduct wide-area surface searches. In this capacity, it acts as the eyes of the carrier to scout for air and surface threats, and it also networks ship and airborne sensors into a singular picture through the Cooperative Engagement Capability. With a common air picture, the Cooperative Engagement Capability enables ships and aircraft to fire at a target with high-quality data consolidated from various radars, which increases accuracy, range, and reaction time.7 Assigning the E2-D to a mission outside of its doctrinal use, like supporting the MLR, would jeopardize the survivability of the carrier and the wider fleet; additionally, its few numbers means the loss of even one, whether by enemy fire or poor tasking, could be catastrophic. The P-8 is the Navy’s primary means of locating submarines by deploying sonobuoys, launching weapons, and collecting and synthesizing track data from various sources. Like the E2-D, the P-8 is too few and exquisite a collections platform to risk far forward of the fleet. Unlike the E2-D, the P-8 is a landbased aircraft, so it will launch from airfields more distant than carrier-based aircraft drastically impacting its sortie rates. Consequently, the P-8 will be hard-pressed to support both the fleet’s and the MLR’s sea denial operations. The E-2 and P-8’s central roles in multiple kill chains make them indispensable, and unreliable for support to the MLR. 

The Navy also operates the MH-60R to support sea-control and sea-denial operations. The rotary-wing platform is designed to provide detection and targeting of submarines and ships for the CSG. As a rotary-wing platform, however, the MH-60R is designed for close-in sensing and striking of surface and subsurface threats and thus has limited range to support any operations outside a certain diameter around the carrier—if the CSG were even willing to part with its vital support. Although as a vertical take-off and landing aircraft it would fit well in expeditionary advanced base operations, it supports up to twelve mission sets, which already would spread the numerous aircraft across the fleet thin.8

The Navy and Marine Corps’ tactical aircraft (TACAIR), specifically the F/A-18 and F-35C, face the most intensive constraints. As the primary means of conducting anti-surface warfare, TACAIR sorties will be spread thin supporting the CSG’s degradation of A2/AD. Tactical aircraft missions will vary from defending against H-6 bombers and DF-26s, finding and striking PLA surface combatants, and escorting high-value airborne assets to combating PLA carrier aircraft, straining the support available to the MLR. Tactical aircraft that could support the MLR will not be responsive and extremely costly. Due to the distances that the CSG will operate at, TACAIR would be required to conduct a three-to-six-hour sortie to support operations in the first island chain. The length of the sorties requires tanker support, fixed loadouts, more maintenance, strained and tired manpower, and more that the Navy must contend with in their own sea control efforts. The MLR will require higher fidelity intelligence to justify TACAIR assuming such risks.  

MLR Sea Denial and Its Constraints
As a stand-in force, the MLR is expected to disrupt the adversary through reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, and sea-denial operation in the littoral environment in support of a maritime campaign. For fires, the MLR can organically employ the Naval Strike Missile from EABs and command and control multi-domain fires and effects via the MLR’s Alpha Command, which consists of a Fire Support Coordination Center, the LAAB’s Fires and Air Direction Center, an Intel operations center, the Regimental S-3, and regimental commander. Within the Alpha Command, the Fires and Air Direction Center can control and coordinate air support for long-range surface strikes while employing distributed tactical air control elements and air defense systems and sensors, like the Marine Air Defense Integrated System and the TPS-80 groundbased air surveillance radar. The EABs prove resilient to A2/AD for two reasons: survivability and resources. Relative to air and sea, and due to the vegetation, dense population centers, and complex topography of the FIC, the littorals prove challenging for radar, electro-optical/infrared (EO/IO) sensors, and space sensors to find targets.

When finding ground targets, radar platforms face multiple challenges. When radar energy is scattered by objects other than its intended target, also known as clutter, the radio wave can be attenuated, meaning the waves are scattered or absorbed in such a way that reduces the intensity of the wave and, as a consequence, the quality of the information gleaned.9 At sea, attenuation can be caused by weather effects like fog, rain, clouds, dust, and more.10 In the littorals, the clutter would be two-fold, with weather effects as well as vegetation, man-made infrastructure, topography, and more that could further attenuate radar energy.11 For high-frequency fire control and targeting radars, higher frequencies suffer more attenuation, which complicates finding a target and receiving track-quality data to fire with.12 The amount of clutter in the littorals offers a unique opportunity for EABs to conceal themselves from radar systems and remain resilient against adversary targeting. Littoral clutter also offers considerable concealment from EO/IO sensors. Electro-optical/infrared sensors benefit from lower altitudes to generate higher quality imagery to satisfy identification requirements, and—due to the dense environment of the littorals—EO/IO-equipped aircraft will have to descend to altitudes that will expose them to the LAAB’s layered air defenses. Once detected, an EAB can reduce their signature to avoid detection, employ decoys, engage the aircraft, displace to an alternate position at the first available opportunity, or a combination therein. 

Despite their ubiquity, satellite observation is still a resource-intensive undertaking. Most remote sensing satellites orbit in a sun-synchronous orbit. Sun-synchronous orbits are polar orbits that pass overhead any given place on the earth’s surface at the same local mean time daily. This makes the satellites’ flight paths and on-station times not only predictable and momentary but also limits the area that can be surveilled, particularly in a region as vast as the Pacific. Additionally, military surveillance satellites are built with target sets in mind. For example, the Jianbing Ocean surveillance program of the Yaogan satellite series is designed to collect electromagnetic emissions of aircraft carriers like aircraft launches, communications transmissions, and radar emissions.13 As subsets of the PLA’s remote sensing satellites are designed with specific targets in mind, the breadth of targets that they are optimized to observe is limited and restrains the quality and quantity of observation that the PLA can employ against U.S. forces, including the MLR. Much like other sensors, with signature management and mobility, the MLR can defeat such systems.   

It is unlikely that the MLR will be able to defeat adversarial ISR wholesale—and that is part of the appeal. One of the critical functions of joint fire support is to synchronize and optimize very limited resources, and although adversary A2/AD is robust, it too must adhere to similar tenants.14 If enough EABs occupy the first island chain capable of firing on Chinese air, surface, and subsurface forces while multiple Carriers steam across the Pacific to do the same, the PLA is faced with a dilemma: which target is the priority? Whichever answer the PLA chooses exposes them to resource constraints in targeting the other. For example, if they prioritize reconnaissance efforts in finding expeditionary advanced bases, using a combination of radar systems, reconnaissance aircraft, and satellites to target them, they now have fewer resources to employ against the Navy. By drawing Chinese attention and resources toward the first-island chain, stand-in forces bind targeting resources that may otherwise be used against naval and air forces, granting them critical maneuver and decision space. To do so, the MLR must pose a credible threat, of which its sea denial kill chains are the crux. Yet, due to competing missions and lower sortie generation rates, the MLR will need to meet higher intelligence requirements to justify support for its kill chains, which due to the reliance on external ISR support from the exact forces the MLR is supporting, will prove difficult. Thus, the credibility of the MLR hinges on acquiring an unmanned aerial platform capable of vertical take-off and landing, equipped with a surface search radar, link-16 capabilities, electro-optical/infrared sensors, and with the option to deploy sonobuoys. 

Capabilities
An MLR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance asset, herein referred to as “the asset,” would be a boon for both the MLR and the larger Joint Force and enable the MLR to organically fulfill its sea-denial mission. First, the asset must fit within the logistical framework of the MLR. To do so, it must be capable of vertical take-off and landing to operate from dispersed EABs as well as naval vessels ranging from full-scale amphibs to smaller ships like the landing ship medium. As an unmanned system, the logistics requirements and operations costs would be lessened. In a cost comparison, unmanned platforms were cheaper on average than manned platforms in both acquisition costs and flight cost per hour by 200 million dollars and 60,000 dollars, respectively.15 Cheaper operations and acquisition costs allow additional funds to be allocated to procuring more systems and preserving sustainable maintenance cycles. However, the asset must not carry armaments. If the asset were equipped with armaments, its logistics chain would become needlessly cumbersome, adding specialized personnel, equipment, and ordinance that would slow down its operations and bloat the MLR’s logistics footprint. 

For the asset to support the MLR in command and control of multi-domain fires, it requires multiple sensors and communications capabilities, primarily a surface search for mobile targets at sea. Once the asset paints a target with its radar, track data is generated and then can be transmitted via Link-16 to Alpha Command, where the track can be analyzed to discern the category (merchant or combatant), type (patrol or destroyer), and class (Renhai or Luyang) of the targeted ship.16 The track data generated from the asset’s radar can also prove useful in anti-submarine warfare by detecting surfaced submarines. If a surfaced submarine is detected with the asset radar, it can force the submarine to dive prematurely or be at risk of being targeted while transmitting the track data to a higher-echelon asset, like a P-8 which will have a more holistic ASW picture.17 With sonobuoys equipped, the asset can rely on cueing from the P-8 or its surface search radar to deploy sonobuoys in maritime chokepoints and likely transit lanes of submarines. 

With EO/IO sensors, the asset can confirm intelligence requirements set by the Target Engagement Authority, which is “the authority and responsibility to engage targets [that] rests with the [Joint Force Commander] responsible for the operational area.”18 With EO/IO sensors, the asset can provide the MLR with the positive identification requirements necessary to conduct a strike that includes the ship hull, name, and flag.19 Due to the asset’s maneuverability and speed, it can gain vital proximity to the target to glean such information while simultaneously forcing the target to divert air defense and reconnaissance resources to target the asset rather than other friendly forces.20 In tandem with the asset radar, the asset’s EO/IO sensors satisfy positive identification requirements for strike coordination, which with high enough situational awareness and trust, could encourage the TEA to delegate to a lower level, which would doubtlessly accelerate MLR kill chains.21 

The capability that binds the asset, the Alpha Command, and the Joint Force together is Link-16, a jam-resistant, high-capacity data link that disseminates radar, sonar, electronic warfare, and other positioning data to users.22 With a Link 16-terminal, the asset can push track data generated from its radar and pull track data from other Link-enabled sensors, like F/A-18s, F-35s, naval ships, and more—ensuring reliable access to a theater common operational picture (COP) for the Alpha Command. The asset can not only ensure access to the theater-level COP for the Alpha Command but also to the MLR’s other Link-enabled EABs beyond the Alpha Command’s line-of-sight by acting as a node to not only disseminate awareness but also to ensure the economic use of force by deconflicting fires for friendly forces.23

The combination of the asset’s capabilities, the radar, EO/IO sensors, and Link-16 would support the prerequisites for the MLR’s anti-ship missile fires to launch. Through the radar, the asset generates primary targeting data, identifying the type of ship, its class, location, and other relevant targeting data. Leveraging its maneuverability and speed, the asset can gain vital proximity to the target and employ its EO/IO sensors to confirm the information as well as glean more. All the while, the Alpha Command is processing the sensor data received via Link-16 while it simultaneously populates on a theater-level COP for the Joint Force’s situational awareness. At this juncture, the TEA decides to engage the target with the MLR’s anti-ship fires in combination with joint missile fire. Once target engagement is approved, the Alpha Command can relay the targeting data received by the asset either via a J-series message to launch platforms and their Fires Direction Centers have a Link-16 terminal or through a K-series message on the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System. The Fires Direction Center can conduct the necessary checks and gunnery to launch the Naval Strike Missile while the Alpha Command conducts the air and waterspace deconfliction for the missile’s flightpath. Once both are confirmed and cleared, the Alpha Command provides approval to launch. While the asset is still on station, it can provide target updates to inbound missile salvos, if necessary, as the high-quality track data it generates allows network-enabled missiles to adjust course until they reach a certain radius from their aimpoint that they can detect and target on their own, otherwise known as a kill radius.24 During the engagement, the asset can provide a means to assess effects that would inform the TEA’s divert or abort decisions. After the engagement, the asset can continue to monitor to assess effects and support reattack decisions.

Once the engagement is completed and the desired effects achieved, the asset can either continue to monitor, repeating the above targeting cycle for follow-on targets, or return to base. With either a Group 3 or Group 4 unmanned platform, the asset could monitor throughout the MLR’s zone of fire with an eight-to-ten-hour loiter time, making it available for multiple missions within one on-station window. However, once an MLR asset has landed and completed its tasking for the day, if acquired in sufficient quantity, another can take its place. With enough platforms, the asset could support 24-hour operations, which will likely be necessary in the scale of conflict envisioned in the Western Pacific.

Conditions
It is well known in scholarship that the intersection of technological employment and force employment, onset by new organizational approaches, pays dividends for increases in military power, and the asset is no different.25 To profit from this dividend, the MLR must form a Littoral Scouting Squadron (LSS) under its command. This LSS would be task-organized in similar fashion as the MEF’s VMU Squadrons, purpose-built to operate and maintain the asset while training the requisite personnel in its unique employment and mission. With access to adjacent Battalion-level staffs, the LSS would have access to a myriad of experts, from Air Command and Control and Air Ground Support in the LAAB to the Fires expertise in the LCT. This creates a coherent kill chain organic to the MLR: The LSS to sense, the LCT to shoot, and the LAAB to connect them. Alternatively, the asset could be operated and maintained at the regimental S-2, provided they have the manning and training available to effectively operate it. If feasible, adopting an existing platform, like the Navy’s MQ-8 or similar platform, would shorten the learning curve for the MLR by reducing procurement costs and tapping into a well of established operational experience. This structure provides the Joint Force a holistic option for organic and external sea-denial kill chains that alleviate the distance and resource constraints that the current MLR structure would suffer from.  

Conclusion: Sense and Make Sense
Anti-access/area-denial imposes extensive costs on forward basing and ships alike, leaving naval and air forces to fight their way into a Western Pacific conflict under such challenging conditions that ready ISR support to Stand-In Forces will be strained. Without the asset, the MLR will be unable to complete its own sea-denial kill chains, and with it, the MLR can sense and make sense of its own battlespace. The marriage of the MLR’s mobility and survivability and the asset’s scouting capabilities, the PLA is placed in a resource and targeting dilemma that makes for a credible and lethal threat. 

>Capt Costello is an Air Support Control Officer and Chinese Foreign Area Officer. He is currently stationed at the American Institute in Taiwan on In-Region Training.

>>Capt Muniz is an Air Support Control Officer and Weapons and Tactics Instructor. He is currently in the Individual Ready Reserve.

Notes

1. Mallory Shelbourne, “Balikatan 23 Features New Marine Littoral Force in First Major Joint Exercise,” USNI News, April 12, 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/04/12/balikatan-23-features-new-marine-littoral-force-in-first-major-joint-exercise.

2. Chris Dougherty, “Buying Time: Logistics for a New American Way of War,” CNAS, April 13, 2023, https://www.cnas.org/press/press-release/buying-time-logistics-for-a-new-american-way-of-war.

3. Ibid. 

4. China Power Team, “How Are China’s Land-Based Conventional Missile Forces Evolving?” China Power, September 21, 2020, https:/chinapower.csis.org/conventional-missiles/; and Lawrence “Sid” Trevethan, “The PLA Rocket Force’s Conventional Missiles,” Proceedings, April 2023, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/april/pla-rocket-forces-conventional-missiles.

5. Dmitry Filipoff, “Fighting DMO, Pt. 8,” CIMSEC, May 1, 2023, https://cimsec.org/fighting-dmo-pt-8-chinas-anti-ship-firepower-and-mass-firing-schemes.

6. Kamilla Gunzinger, “Scale, Scope, Speed & Survivability: Winning the Kill Chain Competition,” fix, track, target, engage, and assess—that enable planners to build and task forces for combat operations. The U.S. military has long relied upon its superior ability to rapidly close kill chains against adversaries. This advantage is now at risk. China has developed countermeasures to obstruct or collapse U.S. kill chains, which could lead to combat failures that have devastating, long-term consequences for the security of the United States and its allies and partners, https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json} Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, May 3, 2023, https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/scale-scope-speed-survivability-winning-the-kill-chain-competition.

7. Naval Sea Systems Command Office of Corporate Communication, “The Cooperative Engagement Capability,” Navy.mil, October 14, 2021, https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2166802/cec-cooperative-engagement-capability.

8. Naval Air Systems Command, “MH-60R Seahawk | NAVAIR,” NAVAIR, n.d., https://www.navair.navy.mil/product/MH-60R-Seahawk.

9. Ibid.

10. Zaha Ria, “Basic Radar Principles and General Characteristics,” Academia, n.d.,

https://www.academia.edu/23718962/CHAPTER_1_BASIC_RADAR_PRINCIPLES_

AND_GENERAL_CHARACTERISTICS.

11. Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining

Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). 

12. Ibid. 

13. Henk Smid, “An Analysis of Chinese Remote Sensing Satellites,” The Space Review, September 22, 2022, https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4453/1.

14. Department of Defense, JP 3-09, Joint Fire Support, (Washington, DC: 2019). 

15. Congressional Budget Office, “Usage Patterns and Costs of Unmanned Aerial Systems | Congressional Budget Office,” Congressional Budget Office, June 2021, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57260.

16. Department of Defense, MTTP for AOMSW, (Washington, DC: 2008). 

17. Michael Glynn, Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare: From the First World War to the Present Day (Philadelphia: Frontline Books, 2022).

18. JP 3-09.

19. MTTP for AOMSW.

20. Dmitry Filipoff, “Fighting DMO, Pt. 7,” CIMSEC, April 17, 2023, https://cimsec.org/fighting-dmo-pt-7-the-future-of-the-aircraft-carrier-in-distributed-warfighting.

21. JP 3-09.

22. Northrop Grumman, Understanding Voice and Data Link Networking, (San Diego: Northrup Grumman, 2014). 

23. JP 3-09.

24. Herzinger and Doyle, Carrier Killer: China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the Early 21st Century, (Everett: Helion and Company, 2022).

25. Michael Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 

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