The Navy is deactivating Amphibious Construction Battalion 2
(ACB).[1] The ACB was tasked with
supporting amphibious landings by providing engineering support for causeways,
cranes, and ferries among other duties.
ACB 1 is still being maintained although, apparently, at greatly reduced
manning levels.[1]
The Navy decided in July to deactivate the battalion after the elevated causeway system — a modular pier stretching up to 3,000 feet to provide logistic support to Marine Corps and Joint Expeditionary Forces — was removed from the command’s Table of Allowance.[1]
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| Elevated Causeway System |
I don’t necessarily have a problem with deactivating the
unit as I see very little realistic need for amphibious landings in the
foreseeable future. However, the move
does raise a few questions.
More generally, the Marines – and the military, in general -
are eliminating lots of units and capabilities and I don’t see any
corresponding establishment of new combat capabilities to replace them other
than the completely unproven and, thus far, demonstrably combat-incapable
unmanned fad.
I’ve long stated that the Marine’s core mission should be
port seizure and this is yet more proof of that need.
____________________________
- If the elevated causeway system has been eliminated, how
will supplies get from ship to shore? We
seem to be early retiring the MLP/AFSB so one has to wonder how sustainment
materiel will get to shore. Have we
pigeon-holed ourselves into only fighting/sustaining from secure ports? In today’s world of multi-thousand mile missiles,
there are no secure ports!
- This is yet another indication that the Marines, the Navy,
and the military are out of the amphibious assault business. If that’s the case, why are we still building
multi-billion dollar amphibious ships?
- If ACB 2 serves no purpose, why maintain ACB 1?
https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2023-03-03/gator-bees-decommissioning-9334218.html
It seems the Navy/Marine Corps team is defaulting logistics over the shore to the Army. Which has the capability, but has not been shy letting the National Command Authority know they would divest of it quickly if only they were allowed.
ReplyDeleteThe latest JLOTS charter I could find is from 2012. The voting working group is O4/O5 level and includes Navy Expeditionary Warfare and Marine logistics. https://www.ustranscom.mil/imp/docs/JLOTS%20Working%20Group%20Charter%20(Final)31%20Jul%202012.pdf
This is an article from 2021 on JLOTS in Defender Europe 21.
https://www.army.mil/article/245195/sddc_7th_tbx_conduct_jlots_mission_for_defender_europe_21
It demonstrates the need for continued expertise in getting across the shore in an improvised port structure.
From 2019 Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/army-reviewing-plan-to-divest-get-rid-of-boats-watercraft-2019-9?op=1
This article explains SECDEF Esper's desire to divest... and subsequent reversal by Army Sec McCarthy.
The need to be able to execute this function seems so blatantly obvious, especially in a "pivot to the Pacific" that the Navy, if for funding purposes alone, would want to retain this capability in house. (Yep... even following the dollars doesn't seem to be reason enough for the Sea Service to want to go ashore from the sea!)
The disconnect from any historical need for US forces to cross oceans, and then..... get off the transport ships.... seems too much of an intellectual barrier to cross.
This divestment of capabilities that may be critical to winning a battle, is evidence of the fact we Americans have idiots as government and military leaders. They're pushing for war against peer or near-peer competitors, but not for any measures necessary to FIGHT such a war, to say nothing of WINNING it.
DeleteIf we're not willing to accept conscription, rationing, and raised taxes so the military will have the resources necessary to fight a war, we should vote out-of-office any elected officials pushing us towards a war we cannot win. If any elected official isn't willing to accept the risk of being voted out, he or she should stop pushing us towards this war.
"we Americans have idiots as government and military leaders."
DeleteI would suggest it means we have idiots for voters.
"It seems the Navy/Marine Corps team is defaulting logistics over the shore to the Army. Which has the capability, but has not been shy letting the National Command Authority know they would divest of it quickly if only they were allowed."
DeleteSo let them divest it to the Navy-Marine Corps team. Voila, instant mission.
Here's what I'm thinking. The Marines will never have the bodies to perform a Normandy landing. But what if they focused on small unit amphibious ops, like raids, and also on paving the way to get larger formations ashore? Suppose wave 1 was Marines who had the jobs of 1) securing a beachhead and 2) lining up everything to make it easier for following units to come ashore. They would have to do those things even for smaller ops, so let them become the experts.
Make Marines the specialists in Wave 1. My guess is that over time we would see spectacular progress in what Wave 1s can accomplish.
"The Marines will never have the bodies to perform a Normandy landing."
DeleteThey never did. In WWII, the Army established 89 divisions, I believe, while the Marines only had 6 divisions and 3 of those weren't established until 1943-44. For half the war, the Marines only had 3 divisions. One more formed in 1943 and the remaining two formed in 1944.
Performing Normandy size assaults was never a Marine responsibility. The Army provided the bulk of amphibious assault troops. That makes the entire concept of the Marines as our main amphibious force highly questionable.
"Suppose wave 1 was Marines who had the jobs of 1) securing a beachhead and 2) lining up everything to make it easier for following units to come ashore. "
There's a generic thought bereft of any detail ! Do you realize what you're actually proposing? Do you grasp the magnitude of it?
Consider a light infantry Marine force, which is what we have now, assaulting, say, a Chinese fortified, armored unit. Do you understand the magnitude of the equipment and force required to do that and successfully "1) securing a beachhead and 2) lining up everything to make it easier for following units to come ashore."?
You'd have to restore tanks, find a way to get them ashore, restore artillery, find a way to get it ashore, restore heavy caliber naval gun support, create new amphibious tanks and IFVs, create heavy armored engineering vehicles, find a way to defend against enemy ballistic and cruise missiles, find a way to defeat reinforced bunkers and fortifications, find a way to land sustainment supplies in the face of enemy fire, figure out a way to establish aerial dominance over the assault, develop a troop landing craft (the ACV is a one-way, limited transport), and so on. Simply transferring Army watercraft to the Marines/Navy isn't going to create this miracle.
Army watercraft is the least important and difficult part of the effort!
Just out of curiosity, where do you foresee an amphibious assault of this size being required?
If USMC just becomes a "recon" force, why even bother?
DeleteDon't we already have Special Forces, Delta, SEALS, Air Force DET plus whatever alphabet soup units remaining inside US Army, what does then USMC bring to the table that we don't have somewhere else? As CNO said, USMC with no tanks, no artillery, no AEV, no connector troop transports, etc etc...what does USMC bring to an recon assault of a beach? And where?!?
There's nothing in Berger USMC that leads me to believe that he wants anything to do with the traditional role of the USMC. USMC job now is to avoid contact at all cost!
"You'd have to restore tanks, find a way to get them ashore, restore artillery, find a way to get it ashore, restore heavy caliber naval gun support, create new amphibious tanks and IFVs, create heavy armored engineering vehicles, find a way to defend against enemy ballistic and cruise missiles, find a way to defeat reinforced bunkers and fortifications, find a way to land sustainment supplies in the face of enemy fire, figure out a way to establish aerial dominance over the assault, develop a troop landing craft (the ACV is a one-way, limited transport), and so on. "
DeleteYep.
"Just out of curiosity, where do you foresee an amphibious assault of this size being required?"
DeleteI don't. But nobody foresaw Normandy in 1939. I don't foresee a large amphib assault on either the Chinese or Russian mainland.
What I do see is smaller phib ops that a Marine-sized unit could handle in places like the first island chain to reinforce/retake an island, or in places like the Med or the Baltic or the Arabian/Persian Gulf. I could see the port seizure mission against any of the Chinese string of pearls ports in South Asia and Africa. But for that they would still have to do all the wave 1 and prior tasks. So if they became the wave 1 specialists to pave the way for a larger assault if ever required, that might be a useful way to parse out the duties between Army and Marines, particularly if the Army are not keen to do it.
There are only two countries in the world--Canada and Mexico--that the USA can fight against without significant movement of troops and equipment across oceans. And we haven't fought against either in almost or over 200 years. So the odds are likely that some significant amphibious movement will be required in any future war.
Delete"odds are likely that some significant amphibious movement will be required in any future war."
DeleteIf by that you mean transport of supplies via ship, you're correct.
However, if you're referring to transport of troops, that's by no means certain. For example, Desert Storm transported most (bordering on all) the troops via airlift with 534,000 personnel being flown into theater and troops then marrying-up with their pre-positioned or sea-lifted equipment.
If you're referring to actual amphibious assaults, a review of potential enemies and areas of operation show no need or likelihood of amphibious assaults, as laid out in previous posts and comments. The most that can be reasonably anticipated is minor amphibious raids and even those fall into the category of hypothetical rather than something reasonably anticipated.
As for transport of supplies, they're not going to swim ashore on their own. Somebody's going to have to get them there. And the way there may (or may not, to be fair) be across a potentially opposed beach.
DeleteI think back to what an instructor in counterinsurgency school before going to Vietnam used to say, "What will the next war be like. Whatever we don't prepare for, that's what the enemy will do." Of course, by that standard, unless the bad guys try to out-woke us, we are going to be poorly prepared.
Bottom line, I'd rather have the capability and not need it rather than need the capability and not have it. Maybe it's not our first priority, but it's a higher priority than pronouns.
"rather have the capability and not need it"
DeleteAs a theoretical philosophy, divorced from reality, that's great. However, the reality is that's not affordable and will bankrupt us as well as dilute our limited resources, focus, manpower, and training. Preparing for everything is the incompetent's way of constructing a force. Instead of doing the hard work of becoming professional and being able to reasonably anticipate what will be needed, the incompetent approach is to prepare for everything.
Preparing for everything is another way of saying, 'preparing for nothing', because it's not possible to prepare for everything. It's like a football team that claims to have two quarterbacks. What they're really saying is they don't have a starting-quality QB.
But the whole force doesn't prepare for everything. You have specialists rather than generalists. And as far as affordability, one thing I've pretty much done is keep things affordable. I've even been criticized for a "spreadsheet approach" to doing so.
DeleteRather than being like a football team with two quarterbacks, I would liken it more to a football team with separate offense, defense, and special teans units.
" I would liken it more to a football team with separate offense, defense, and special teans units."
DeleteYour analogy fails because those are REQUIRED functions rather than nebulous, 'prepare for anything no matter how unlikely' functions.
“I’ve long stated that the Marine’s core mission should be port seizure and this is yet more proof of that need.”
ReplyDeleteDoesn’t appear difficult to develop or defend as strategy, does it?
Has its analogues elsewhere. “Merit”, for one.
I have no idea what you're suggesting. Try again and offer something substantive to go with it, please.
DeleteDo our leaders even know that Mulberry Harbours were key to the invasion of France in 1944?
ReplyDelete"Mulberry harbours were two temporary portable harbours developed by the British Admiralty and War Office during the Second World War to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. After the Allies successfully held beachheads following D-Day, two prefabricated harbours were taken in sections across the English Channel from southern England with the invading armies and assembled off Omaha Beach (Mulberry "A") and Gold Beach (Mulberry "B").
The Mulberry harbours were to be used until major French ports could be captured and brought back into use after repair of the inevitable sabotage by German defenders. The Mulberry B harbour at Gold Beach was used for 10 months after D-Day, and over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tons of supplies were landed before it was fully decommissioned. The still only partially-completed Mulberry A harbour at Omaha Beach was damaged on 19 June by a violent storm that suddenly arrived from the north-east."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour
Not sure how any wargame is accurate if it doesn't address how the team's players get there in the first place.
ReplyDeleteYes!
DeleteSo they are being removed from the MPF ships. Okay, move them ashore and load them if needed! At least keep these units in the reserves. Or the Marines should jump at this chance to have a real role. It has engineer support units and excess manpower overall.
ReplyDeleteThese piers are needed by the military sealift command. Even if a port is available, it may not be able to accommodate a surge of ships. The Army should be screaming too! Even Navy destroyers and amphibs could find these useful during wartime. They can dock to allow a little shore leave and take fresh food aboard.
"At least keep these units in the reserves."
DeleteThat's a good idea.
Lutefisk
I'm working on the goods transport post and the numbers suggest this is not a great idea. Something like the 70 biggest container ships could carry all the artillery shells fired by the Allies in WWII in one crossing and could be unloaded in a few days if distributed between a few modern ports. Modern container ships and ports are so efficient that even a small ship could sustain an invasion beach head for days or weeks. Ports are massive overkill in many ways.
ReplyDeleteI recently finished Grant's Memoirs and was surprised that engineers made a decisive difference in many of the battles he experienced. A modern version of the strategy might be to land somewhere without opposition, build several floating piers to unload container ships, and accept a slower fight to reach better infrastructure, while engineers build temporary roads to connect the troops and the piers. And in some ways I guess this was the Normandy strategy. But it'd work better today because we have containers, cranes, and forklifts. Land transportation has many more limitations and ports end up being more valuable because of their linkages to railroads or pipelines than anything else.
I just see this as one more need to reinstitute something like the old Fleet Problems or the Royal Navy SpringTrain. Figure out what things we are apt to have to do and then simulate them in realistic exercises. The Fleet Problems simulated Pearl Harbor at least once and an attack on the Panama Canal, and one SpringTrain simulated an attack on Gibraltar so realistically that Spain filed official protests. We need realistic training with real ships and sailors instead of paper table top games, and we need to figure out what we can and cannot do.
ReplyDeleteRight now I think we are making strategic decisions without knowledge of what we can actually do, and what additional capabilities we need to do the things that we currently cannot do.
Training, maintenance, technology. Get back to them as the top 3 focuses, in that order of importance.
This is also part of a military wide trend of a reduction in CB work. While a few initial FOBs in Iraq and Afghanistan may have been thrown up by military engineers or construction units, over time it was all turned over to contractors.
ReplyDeleteAircraft maintenance thanks to the F-35 is now becoming more contractor than military personnel.
How much of the Ford's gee-whiz but barely works systems are maintained by anything other than contractores.
Used to by the Military Industrial Complex generated equipment for the Military, that the military then maintained. Now the Complex is building, maintaining, and in the case of some drones doing the operation as well.
And while I approve of Space Force contracting SpaceX, ULA etc. per flight instead of buying of the USSF buying the hardware, launch systems is a very niche thing.
But DOD is expanding contracting to everything.
Military Training? Going to contractors. Although for now most trainers are thankfully veterans themselves.
The DOD's new cloud won't be owned by the Military--we will be renting it entirely from Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Not that that's very new--most IT in the military is also outside contractors.
I personally should be happy--I'm a contractor employee myself--but as much as I like my company and think they are doing a good job, they are doing things that when I was a serviceman in the Bush Sr era was all done by soldiers, airman, sailors, and marines.