My Marine Corps

 
ComNavOps has often criticized the Marine Corps for what it’s become.  A once proud and valuable fighting force has been reduced to silliness and irrelevance.  So, what would ComNavOps’ ideal Marine Corps look like?  What would its main mission be?  What forces would it need?  I’ve described some of this in passing in previous posts and comments but here is the collected and condensed summary.
 
As always, it starts with mission.  What is the Marine’s mission – its purpose? 
 
There are two answers to that:  legal (Title 10) and practical (what’s actually needed)
 
Mission – Legal Requirements
 
Title 10 [see Ref 1 for the text of Title 10, Section 8063] defines the purpose of the Marine Corps which consists of the following stated purposes:
 

• seizure or defense of advanced naval bases
• conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign
• provide detachments and organizations for service on armed vessels of the Navy
• provide security detachments for the protection of naval property at naval stations and bases
• perform such other duties as the President may direct
• develop, in coordination with the Army and the Air Force, those phases of amphibious operations that pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment used by landing forces
• responsible, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of peacetime components of the Marine Corps to meet the needs of war

 
Notice that it doesn’t actually say that the Marines must be the ones to conduct amphibious operations, only that they jointly develop the “tactics, technique, and equipment” for such operations.  Note, also, that there is no explicit mention of amphibious assaults, only “operations”, which can be any action initiated or enabled from the sea.  Again, that means that amphibious assaults, while certainly one example of an “amphibious operation”, are not the only possible action.  Thus, the claim that many make that the Marines must be capable of performing amphibious assaults is not true, strictly speaking.
 
 
Mission – Practical Requirements
 
Legal requirements aside, what missions are actually pertinent to US military operations, in general, and suited to the Marines, in particular?
 
Main Mission – Port seizure (a form of amphibious assault, thereby satisfying the legal requirement)

Secondary Missions – naval base defense, embassy protection, and the like
 
Regarding the more commonly envisioned amphibious assault, I’ve said, repeatedly, that I don’t see amphibious assaults as being strategically necessary in the foreseeable future so what does that leave?  As we’ve often noted, any ground action (adage:  the seat of purpose is on the land) requires a secure port for sustainment.  Over the beach supply cannot support a large ground action.  For example, Normandy was all about securing ports.  Thus, the Marine’s main mission should be port seizure.  I’d add airfield seizure to that except that the Army/Air Force once had that mission and, presumably, still do.  If not, that would also be part of the Marine’s mission.
 
Many would suggest that the Marine’s primary – or, at worst, secondary – mission is to be the nation’s first response force.  Once upon a time that was true, though not a legal requirement, but now the combination of Army/Air Force can respond faster and with more force than the Marines can.  Thus, first response is not a Marine Corps mission although they might assist in such a mission if circumstances warranted.
 
So, having defined the main mission as port seizure, what is needed to execute that mission?
 
 
Size
 
Two divisions (10,000 men, each) ought to be sufficient to execute a successful port seizure.  If you need more than that, you’ve probably bitten off too big a bite and should look elsewhere for a port to seize.
 
There is also the practical concern that 10,000+ men crammed into the relatively small area of a port is beginning to get too physically crowded to be practical and would offer an enemy too concentrated a target.
 
In addition, one brigade (3000 men) should be dedicated to specializing in the secondary missions.
 
Add in a 50% extra troop level for logistic support tasks and you get a total troop strength of around 34,500.
 
Division Unit Types
 

• 3x Assault Brigade
• 1x Construction Battalion (300 troops) specifically dedicated to port clearing and initial repair
• 1x Construction Battalion (300 troops) dedicated to road construction and repair to enable landed supplies and forces to quickly disperse outward
• 1x Harbor clearance and dredging unit (specialized vessels, 100 troops)
• 1x MCM – land (100 troops)
• 1x MCM – sea (100 troops)
• 1x Recon Drone Company

 
Equipment
 

• Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (think ZSU)
• Self-propelled anti-aircraft missile units
• Mobile C-RAM
• Mobile EW
• High speed landing craft with capacity for two squads
• Amphibious tank like LVT(A) for anti-personnel and anti-building and anti-fortification
• Small, very fast, very maneuverable assault helos carrying one squad each;  very fast insertion/unloading/departure (think Vietnam Huey) unlike current helos and V-22
• Specially designed, high speed attack transports
• Lots of self-propelled mortars for use in urban areas requiring indirect fire.due to high rise buildings
• Combat Engineering Vehicles for debris clearance

 
Note some of the things that are not listed as equipment, meaning that they are not useful or required under this concept:  AAV/ACV, fixed wing aircraft, ‘jeeps’, anything towed
 
 
Aviation
 
This is the big question.  Does a Marine Corps need its own air force?  For the port seizure mission, I see a need for a heavy helo component providing both attack and troop assault transport.  Helos are used for rapid insertion of troops at key locations in and around the port.  Attack helos provide the suppression and fire support needed to land the ground force from the air and sea.
 
I do not see a need for a fixed wing component.  Fixed wing aircraft are nearly useless for ground support in an urban area and are far too vulnerable to ground anti-air weapons.  Aerial supremacy is a fixed wing function but is a Navy responsibility so no Marine aircraft are needed for that.
 
A division should have a helo component of something on the order of 50 attack helos and 50 transport helos.  This would require the use of three big deck amphibious ships.
 
I’ve often stated that helos are not survivable over the battlefield.  Well, port seizure is an exception to that rule though only under this specific scenario.  The helos must be supported with ground forces applying relentless attack against the enemy’s anti-air assets.  Further, the helos do not fly overland to any great extent and thus avoid much of the enemy’s anti-air threat.  Finally, as described in the equipment list, the helos must be designed for very rapid insertion, which is the polar opposite of the MV-22 or any existing helo. 
 
The idea of helos spending time over a battlefield is, indeed, a non-survivable scenario as is trying to land in giant, open fields using snail-slow descents and takeoffs as MV-22s are required to do.  The helos in this scenario, as in Vietnam, would use a gut-wrenching drop, a five second unloading, and bounce back into the air heading directly away from the battlefield.  You might want to look at videos of Vietnam helo insertions to see just what we were once capable of.
 
One of the reasons helos had such high attrition rates in Vietnam was that we attempted to use them to insert troops directly into high threat areas.  In this concept, helos would be transporting troops around the periphery of the battle more so than directly into the threat.  We also attempted helo ops without much firepower support, depending on surprise to achieve survivability.  For this scenario, naval gunfire should be used to suppress enemy anti-air fire as the helos are inserting.  Of course, we have no naval gun support but that glaring weakness is another topic.
 
Another aspect of aviation is the role of the fleet carrier.  Many people believe that our carriers will supply ground support aircraft.  Setting aside the fact that we have no carrier based, ground support aircraft, that is not the role of the fleet carrier.  The carrier group’s job is to provide distant interdiction of enemy counterattacks.  That means preventing enemy naval response, overland troop reinforcement, cruise missile attacks, air attacks, etc.  Typically, this would be done at significant distances from the landing site and the carrier would not be in range to provide effective ground support.
 
 
Ships
 
Amphibious Aviation Ship – Looking at the equipment list, it is obvious that a new type of amphibious aviation ship, geared toward port seizure, would be needed.  The ship would carry 30+ helos (attack and transport) but not troops.  It would be purely an aviation ship – a landing support carrier.  As such, it would be, conceptually, half the volume and displacement of today’s big deck amphibious ships.  Troop insertion helos would be supplied and serviced by this ship but would pick up their loads from the attack transports, as needed, using the same combat-quick ‘bounce’ loading as for insertion unloadings.
 
Attack Transport – As we’ve previously discussed, WWII style attack transports would transport and land troops.  Landing craft would consist of around 30 reusable landing craft (think Higgins boat) as opposed to the sinlge use AAV/ACV.  While a well deck is an option, I would lean towards a WWII style attack transport. 
 
 
Basing
 
My Marine force would not function like today’s Marines.  There would be no deployments, no extended MEU-like cruises floating around, doing nothing, just waiting for something to happen.  Instead, the forces would embark from CONUS or, possibly, a central base such as in the Middle East or Pearl Harbor.  A port seizure is never going to be a spur of the moment operation so there is no need for deployments.  The force would be home based, training relentlessly – nothing else.
 
 
Mission Methodology
 
The key to the success of the port seizure mission is speed.  This means a rapid approach to minimize defensive reaction time.  For example, despite knowing pretty much where and when the Allies would invade Europe, the Germans were still slow to react and were unable to mount a rapid, coordinated counter attack.  Even if the enemy knows we’re coming, if we can hit fast enough and hard enough (shock), we can still be successful.
 
 
Command
 
This force would have little need for a top-heavy command structure.  Here is the envisioned command:
 
Commandant = General
Staff = Colonels, as needed
Division = General (1x per division, 2x total)
Brigade = Colonel
 
Thus, the entire force would have a total of 3 Generals and a handful of Colonels.  Hopefully, this would create a smaller, more focused force.
 
 
Missing
 
What are we currently missing in order to execute my vision of the Marine Corps?  Well, almost everything!  Setting aside the missing mission, organization, doctrine, operational planning, command and control structure, and mindset, we lack the following equipment (partial list):
 

• Large caliber naval fire support
• Amphibious aviation ship
• Attack transport
• Landing craft
• Anti-aircraft vehicles
• Self-propelled mortars
• EW
• C-RAM
• MCM
• Amphibious tank
• Transport helo
• Combat engineering vehicles
• Harbor construction vessels

 
In short, we lack everything.  Almost nothing we currently have is useful other than largely untrained bodies.
 
 
Conclusion
 
There you have it.  I’ve laid out a coherent rationale for the existence of the Marine Corps and a description of their mission and what is needed to execute that mission.  Contrast my vision to today’s Marine Corps vision – to the extent that they even have one.  Which one would you like to devote your taxes to supporting?
 
  
 
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[1] Following is the text of Title 10, §8063.
 
Title 10, §8063 United States Marine Corps: composition; functions
 
(a) The Marine Corps, within the Department of the Navy, shall be so organized as to include not less than three combat divisions and three air wings, and such other land combat, aviation, and other services as may be organic therein. The Marine Corps shall be organized, trained, and equipped to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components, for service with the fleet in the seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign. In addition, the Marine Corps shall provide detachments and organizations for service on armed vessels of the Navy, shall provide security detachments for the protection of naval property at naval stations and bases, and shall perform such other duties as the President may direct. However, these additional duties may not detract from or interfere with the operations for which the Marine Corps is primarily organized.
 
(b) The Marine Corps shall develop, in coordination with the Army and the Air Force, those phases of amphibious operations that pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment used by landing forces.
 
(c) The Marine Corps is responsible, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of peacetime components of the Marine Corps to meet the needs of war.

Outage

 ComNavOps region is currently experiencing a massive Internet service outage.  I will resume normal operations when service resumes.  Apologies until then.

Ship Defense

The Navy’s trend in ship design has been towards lighter and lighter built ships with less and less defensive capabilities.  Well, let’s step in and put a stop to that!  Since the Navy clearly doesn’t know how to design a ship with defensive capabilities, let’s do it for them.
 
We’re all familiar with the concept of a carrier group’s layered defense.  Aircraft provide wide ranging defense against search aircraft and provide the initial defensive layer against an attack.  Standard missiles offer the possibility of very long range intercepts.  Escort ships range dozens of miles out to provide extended ASW and AAW protection.  Medium range defense is provided by closer escorts and medium range defensive missiles.  Various missiles, electronic warfare systems, and CIWS provide close in defense.
 
Similarly, an individual ship’s defense should consist of more – much more! – than just Standard/ESSM missiles and one or two RAM/SeaRAM, as the Navy seems to believe.  A ship’s defense should be a multi-faceted, layered construct.  Let’s consider the individual components.
 
 
Outer Layer
 

• UAVs – small, stealthy, wide ranging UAVs providing passive aerial sensor coverage
• Standard Missiles – long range anti-air defense
• Passive Sonar – long range detection
• EO/IR – long range visual and infrared detection integrated into a 360 deg hemispherical sensor system
• ESM – very long range signals analysis (Outboard/COBLU and S-3 Shadow type sensing) providing detection and triangulation
• Stealth – do all the above without, in turn, being detected

 
Middle Layer
 

• EO/IR - medium range visual and infrared detection integrated into a 360 deg hemispherical sensor system combined with fire control
• ESSM – medium range anti-air defense
• EW/ECM – detection, jamming, spoofing, etc.
• Stealth – do all the above without, in turn, being detected

 
Inner Layer
 

• EW/ECM – point defense jamming, spoofing, etc.
• RAM/SeaRAM – close in anti-air defense
• CIWS – close in anti-air defense
• Decoys – integrated into Aegis
• Stealth – do all the above without, in turn, being detected

 
 
A few supplementary comments are warranted:
 
Sensors – 360 degree EO/IR with targeting capability (IRST) in addition to supplement and largely replace radar.  Such a system would involve far more than the current one EO sensor on ships today.  This would be several, perhaps dozens, of sensors each scanning a portion of the sky and acting as a single, integrated system.  During war, this may actually be the main sensor system so that the ship doesn’t have to radiate.
 
UAVs – This has been posted on previously.  Every ship should sail with several dozen small, stealthy, passive UAVs for establishing situational awareness.  These are cheap and expendable.  They must be stealthy.  It’s pointless to try to establish situational awareness if doing so gives away your own position.  We must be able to see without being seen.
 
Long range missiles – I hesitate to even include long range missiles as I believe their use will be quite limited, bordering on never.  No enemy is going to present high altitude targets other than ballistic missiles which are a special case.  So many people forget that long range missiles can only engage high altitude targets because of the radar horizon limitation.  Beyond the radar horizon, radar can only see targets at altitude. 
 
Close In – Attackers will get through.  It’s guaranteed.  Even in scripted exercises, they always do.  Every ship should have several to dozens of close in weapon systems instead of the nearly useless single (or no!) close in weapon on today’s ships.
 
Inner Layer - The inner layer has the most components and yet the Navy devotes the least amount of effort and resources to it.  The Zumwalt has no close in weapons.  The DDG(X) concept graphic has only two RAM launchers for close in defense.  The Burkes have only one CIWS.
 
EW/ECM is the most common and, historically, the most effective anti-air component and yet the Navy devotes very little attention or resources to it.  Even the current SEWIP upgrades are a limited effort, poorly executed.
 
Focus - So, what does the Navy focus its attention and resources on?  That’s right, the most expensive and least likely to be used component:  long range missiles.

Mine Countermeasures Emphasis

Recently, a reader (username “Chinese Gordon”) made the astute observation that mine countermeasures (MCM) was not a path to flag rank.  He’s correct, as far as I can tell.  Of the 250 or so  flag officers we have, how many are former MCM operators?  I don’t know but my guess is somewhere between none and almost none.  This may explain, in part, why the Navy has, for all practical purposes, abandoned MCM.  If we had a couple dozen flag officers with MCM career backgrounds, I’d like to think the Navy would be paying more than lip service to MCM.
 
How do we get more MCM officers into flag ranks?
 
Well, this is where we run into a brick wall.  Even if the Navy magically decided to add MCM officers to the flag ranks … … there aren’t any to add.  There simply are no MCM focused officers left in the Navy.  The Avengers are essentially gone, parked pierside, rotting as they wait to be officially retired.  The LCS has yet to field a viable MCM module so there are no LCS officers that have worked LCS-MCM.
 
You’d have to go down to the Lieutenant level to find anyone who deals with MCM to any degree and those few are doing one-at-a-time, unmanned mine hunting technology development, not real world MCM.
 
Who in the Navy has ever cleared a thousand-mine field, or even just a hundred, in the real world?  No one.  Who has engaged in an amphibious assault exercise that included actual clearance of mines from a 50 mile approach to the beach?  No one.  Who has cleared mines from a chokepoint while under enemy fire, real or simulated?  No one.  And so it goes.  No officer in the Navy has even a rudimentary level of MCM expertise as it would pertain to a peer war or even a disagreement with a group of radical Girl Scouts.
 
We can’t develop flag level focus on MCM because no one in the Navy has any MCM experience.
 
We’re screwed.  We’ll be forced to learn MCM on the fly in a real war and that is a very costly way to learn anything.
 
By the way, the same applies to offensive mine warfare.

ESSM Inventory Perspective

Just a quick follow up on the previous post about the Blk 2 ESSM inventory.  As a bit of perspective, if the entire Blk 2 ESSM inventory were applied across the 70+ Burke class, that would give each ship approximately 7 missiles.  How’s that for an inventory?!
 
Of course, there are other ESSM variants but not all that much more.  If we go to war, I hope it’s a very, very short war!

ESSM Blk 2 Delivery

In case you missed it, here’s a brief update on ESSM Blk 2 missile deliveries.  According to DOT&E[1], ESSM production missiles began delivery to the Navy in July 2022.  Raytheon has just delivered the 500^th missile to the Navy.[2]  That’s 500 missiles in a bit over three years.  That also tells us what the entire current, maximum Blk 2 inventory for the Navy is.  Those who envision ships teeming with quad-packed ESSM missiles should note that a single Burke, with 96 VLS cells, would consume almost the entire inventory of ESSM Blk 2 missiles!
 

ESSM Blk 2

 
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[1]https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2022/navy/2022essm.pdf?ver=OqRFEN_Af764y6bEgF_k3A%3d%3d
 
[2]Naval News website, “RTX’s Raytheon delivers 500th ESSM Block 2 to U.S. Navy”, staff, 2-Sep-2025,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/10/rtxs-raytheon-delivers-500th-essm-block-2-to-u-s-navy/

AI Hacked – How Would We Know?

Since the age of sail, sailors have mastered the skill of navigation on the open seas using the stars and a sextant.  What happened when we introduced the miracle of GPS?  We completely lost our navigating skills.  Aside from a few individual throwbacks who enjoy using a sextant as a hobby, no one in the Navy can navigate without GPS.  Unbelievably, in some of the recent spate of collisions and groundings, it was discovered that bridge navigation teams had even lost the skill of fixing a position by taking bearings on known landmarks.
 
Since time immemorial, explorers have traversed the land using the stars, a map, and dead reckoning.  Our overland navigational skills increased even further with the advent of the compass.  Today, the Army has lost the ability to navigate overland without GPS.
 
Pilots used to be able to navigate cross country and hit a time on target to the second with nothing more than a map, bearings, and a stopwatch.  Today, that’s a lost skill.
 
GPS, the miracle of technology, caused us to lose our navigational skills and has made us weaker and less competent.  We have become dependent on GPS.  When our GPS systems fail or are degraded or eliminated by the enemy, we have nothing to fall back on.  Exactly like a drug addict, we have become addicted to GPS and unable to function without it.
 
What’s the next miracle of technology that we’re working so hard to acquire?  Yes, artificial intelligence (AI).  Does anyone have the slightest doubt that we’ll become utterly dependent on AI?
 
Ask a college student to write a report without using AI.  He’ll produce gibberish.  He’s lost his ability (or never developed it) to conduct research, assemble a cogent thesis, and present an intelligible, written document.  Heck, forget AI;  ask a student to write a paper without the Grammarly app and see what results.  Even simpler, ask any young adult who’s gone to public school to calculate change for a purchase in his head, without a calculator, and watch the deer in the headlights, frozen response.  We’ve become dependent on calculators and can’t even do simple arithmetic in our heads anymore.
 
Does anyone have the slightest doubt that we’ll become utterly dependent on AI?
 
The military, by the way, is attempting to make AI the foundation of our entire command and control systems.  We believe, mistakenly, that AI will give us the advantage we need to beat China.  AI, we believe, will analyze all our data, make sense of the fog of war, tell us exactly what the enemy is going to do even before he knows, and will tell us how to counter and defeat the enemy.  AI.  Magic.  One and the same.
 
Those of us who grew up during the introduction of computers are all too familiar with the well known computer programming adage, Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO).  Bad data in, bad results out.  AI is not immune to this phenomenon.
 
Be honest.  Does anyone seriously question what they find on the Internet?  Sure, we’ll make jokes about the Internet but does anyone actually question what they read?  Of course not.
 
Does anyone have the slightest doubt that we’ll become utterly dependent on AI?
 
Where are we going with this?  Hang in there.  We’re almost at the point of the post.  One more tidbit to assimilate.
 
Does a week go by without hearing about high level computer systems and programs, both in the military and civilian worlds, being hacked?  Nope.  And those are just the incidents that are made public.  The military and government computers and programs are hacked on a daily basis but for security reasons the incidents are kept quiet.  Despite our best efforts, various state and criminal actors routinely hack our most secure systems.  For all practical purposes, they’re unstoppable.
 
So, now put those two bits together:  absolute dependency on new technology and unstoppable hacking, and ask yourself what the result will be? 
 
The answer is easy to predict.  China will routinely hack and compromise our AI-based systems and we’ll by absolutely paralyzed because of our dependency.
 
But wait, it gets worse.  What if China hacks our AI-based systems subtly and we don’t even know it?  What if they simply manipulate the AI to give us results that give them the advantage?  We’d blindly accept the results (that’s what dependency is), never questioning them and never knowing we were being mislead and manipulated.  In fact, it would never even occur to us to ask whether the AI output was valid.
 
But wait, it gets still worse.  Even if someone was inclined to question AI results, we have no one competent enough to know what a valid result should be.  You have to have subject matter knowledge and expertise to even have an idea that something might not be right and our so-called professional warriors have no expertise (you built a ship without galvanic corrosion protection!).  So, even someone who was inclined to question a result wouldn’t have the slightest idea whether the result was or was not valid.
 
A calculator is a great tool for someone who has been trained in classical math and can recognize a garbage out result.  It is a terrible tool for someone who has no useful math skills and is unable to recognize a garbage out result.  So too, an AI command and control program could be a useful tool to a thoroughly trained and experienced professional warrior who can recognize a garbage out result.  It is a terrible tool for someone who has no useful warfighting skills and is unable to recognize a garbage out result … such as entire current flag officer corps.
 
We all recognize that networked computers are a vulnerability because if one is hacked, they’re all hacked.  We aren’t doing much to address that vulnerability but we do recognize it.  Similarly, we must recognize that AI is a vulnerability, especially when it’s being used as the basis of our highest level command and control programs.
 
Right now, just like drug dealers, we’re being given a free taste of AI to get us hooked.  We need to halt the process before we become totally addicted and helplessly dependent.  We need to regain our unaided warfighting expertise.  We do that by eliminating all non-war education (diversity, equity, gender sensitivity, climate, etc.) at the service academies, eliminating diversity crap from the leadership and ranks, ruthlessly eliminating paperwork from the daily lives of officers, eliminating deployments, bringing the fleet home for maintenance and training, start promoting a culture of acceptance of aggressiveness and ‘good’ mistakes, and start conducting daily realistic warfighting exercises and force our incompetent leadership to learn their profession.