From Here To Eternity – Or At Least Several Miles Inland

The Marines purpose is to conduct amphibious assaults.

The Marines have publicly stated that frontal beach assaults are a thing of the past (so why are they pursuing AAV upgrades/replacements?  But, I digress …).

Accepting the previous statement at face value (the wisdom of that statement is a topic for another post), one is logically forced to conclude that the Marine’s purpose, now, is to conduct aviation assaults behind an enemy’s beachfront.  Indeed, the Marine’s obsession with the MV-22 and the Navy’s build of two America class LHAs without well decks would seem to support that direction.  Of course, if that’s the Marine’s new purpose, one can also legitimately wonder if the Marines have a unique role, now, given that the Army has airborne assault units but, I digress …

So the Marines want to be an airborne assault force?  Let’s look at that a bit closer.  Now, I’m not a ground expert so I may well be off on some details.  Feel free to correct me. 

The first thing to recognize is that, having ruled out beachfront assaults, the assault will be airborne and will be inland.  That’s the whole point of ruling out beachfront assaults – they’re considered too dangerous and too difficult.  The Marines believe that they can achieve better results by attacking inland – behind the enemy’s front line, so to speak.  This is maneuver warfare utilizing the skies.  Inland will mean several miles to hundreds of miles.  The key point is that there will be miles of transport over enemy territory to reach the assault location.

Good enough.  Now, let’s look at a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and what it takes to get the unit ashore in an assault.  A Marine Expeditionary Unit consists of around 2,200 Marines and their equipment.  Wiki provides the following equipment list for a MEU. 

4                      M1A1 Main Battle Tank

7 to 16            Light Armored Vehicle LAV-25

15                    Assault Amphibious Vehicle

6                      155mm Howitzer: M777

8                      M252 81mm Mortar  

8                      BGM-71 TOW Anti-Tank Missile 

8                      FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Missile 

4 to 6              AH-1W SuperCobra Attack Helo

3                      UH-1N Twin Huey Utility Helo

12                    CH-46E Sea Knight Medium Lift Helo

4                      CH-53E Super Stallion Heavy Lift Helo

6                      AV-8B Harrier

2                      RO Water Purification Unit

1                      LMT 3000 Water Purification Unit

4                      Tractor

2                      TX51-19M Rough Terrain Forklift

3                      D7 bulldozer 

1                      Med Tactical Vehicle Dump Truck

4                      Mk48 Logistics Vehicle System

7                      500 gallon Water Containers

63                    Humvee

30                    Med Tactical Vehicle Trucks

Note:  The CH-46 is being replaced on a 10 for 12 basis by the MV-22.

Troops aside, here are the heavier items from the preceeding list that need to be transported to the battle.  I’ve added equipment weights for some of the heavier items as cited in common sources.

4                      M1A1 main battle tank                                 60 tons 

7 to 16            Light Armored Vehicle LAV-25                   13 tons 

15                    Assault Amphibious Vehicle                        29 tons

6                      155mm Howitzer: M777                               9000 lbs 

8                      M252 81mm mortar                          90 lbs 

8                      BGM-71 TOW Anti-Tank Missile 

8                      FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Missile 

2                      RO Water Purification Unit

1                      LMT 3000 Water Purification Unit

4                      Tractor

2                      TX51-19M Rough Terrain Forklift

3                      D7 Bulldozer                                                  32000 lbs

1                      Med Tactical Vehicle Dump Truck

4                      Mk48 Logistics Vehicle System

7                      500 gallon Water Containers                       4000 lbs

63                    Humvee                                                          6000 lbs

30                    Medium Tactical Vehicle Trucks

Here’s the assets available to provide the transport.  I’ve added troop and cargo capacities as cited in common sources.

4                      CH-53E Super Stallion Heavy Lift Helo      55 troops or

                                                                                                30000 lb internal cargo or                                                                                                    36000 lb external carry

10                    MV-22 Osprey                                               24 troops or

                                                                                                20000 lb internal cargo or                                                                                                    15000 lb external carry

Do you see the problem, here?  Some of the MEU’s equipment is too heavy to be transported by air.  Specifically, the tanks and AAVs (assuming AAVs would be wanted as a mobile infantry vehicle – I’m told that the Marines don’t train as mobile infantry) can’t be transported.  LAVs can be transported by CH-53s in terms of weight limits but I don’t know if they actually are or not in practice.  Similarly, the Humvees, trucks, and whatnot can be transported but I don’t know whether they would be in practice.

There are three types of “goods” that need to be transported to the assault site.

• troops
• heavy equipment
• supplies (ammo, food, etc.)

Troops will be transported via MV-22 (24 troops per) and CH-53 (55 troops per).  If you do the math, 4 CH-53s and 10 MV-22s can transport 460 troops at one time.  Thus, it would take 5 waves to get the MEU ashore.

Heavy equipment can only be transported one at a time, per helo, again requiring multiple round trips.

Supply transportation would be an ongoing exercise for the duration of the operation.

Now, what do we think the life expectancy of slow, unarmed helos and MV-22s will be in a high threat environment?  As a point of historical reference, the Soviet’s experience in Afghanistan demonstrated that the life expectancy of helos on the modern battlefield when pitted against Stinger anti-aircraft missiles was not long.  The simple and ubiquitous ZSU-23-4 multi-barreled anti-aircraft gun (or similar) has proven deadly to aircraft and helicopters throughout the world.  For an inland assault, we’re expecting slow, unarmed helos and MV-22s to make dozens of transits over miles of Stinger and ZSU-ish infested ground?  I leave it to you to contemplate the effects of even a seemingly low attrition rate of 10%-20% per transit.  The assault will rapidly stall out.

Factor in the fact that we can’t transport tanks, the most powerful item in the MEU, and AAVs and the MEU is leaning towards becoming strictly a light infantry unit.  Perhaps in recognition of the inability to transport tanks, Gen. Amos has stated that the Marines will be decreasing the number of tanks as the Corps is reorganized and downsized in the very near future.

Kane (1) discusses the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 and, in particular, the Israeli and Egyptian clashes between Israeli helicopters and Egyptian ZSUs and SA-7 shoulder fired SAMs.  Israeli aviation suffered significant losses.  Kane states (1),

“Tragically, nothing has changed over the past 24 years which would prevent similar catastrophic losses to U.S. Marine transport helicopters attempting to execute maneuver warfare against a similar air defense network.”

From what I know (here’s where my knowledge is lacking and I may be wrong to a degree), the CH-53 simply does not have the threat detectors, protection systems, weapons, speed, and maneuverability to operate over enemy controlled, high threat areas and survive.  The MV-22 is more survivable in a troop transport scenario due to its speed but forfeits its survivability when carrying external loads since it can’t operate at speed.  Further, the MV-22 suffers from an inability to conduct compact, formation combat landings.  Basically, it must land one at a time or land over a widely dispersed area and is very vulnerable in the landing phase.  Both platforms are simply slow moving, unmaneuverable targets when carrying external loads.

We see, then, that the MEU lacks the transport capability and transport survivability to effectively conduct inland assaults.  Of course, additional amphibious ships could be called on to supplement the MEU’s transport assets but that would require several amphibious ships just to get a single MEU ashore and it would still result in severe transport losses.  Remember, every transport that is shot down while transporting costs not only the transport itself but whatever load it was carrying – a double hit, so to speak.

This discussion was focused on a MEU but, of course, the Marines can also operate on larger scales.  However, the problems simply scale up accordingly.

We seem to have a disconnect between the Marines stated preferred mode of amphibious assault and the means to conduct such an assault.  Inexplicably, I don’t see a major push to correct this shortcoming and, in fact, the Marines stated number two acquisition priority is a new AAV (JSF being the number one priority) which does not support the preferred assault method.  I have never seen the Marine Corps more confused about its identity than they are now. 

(1) Transport Helicopters:  The Achilles Heel of Maneuver Warfare, Maj. Joel Kane, USMC, 1997