Joke of an Amphibious Exercise

Japan and the US just recently conducted an amphibious assault exercise, Iron Fist 2025. 
 
“Iron Fist” !!!  Yeah!  Visions of crushing, overwhelming, amphibious firepower swarming ashore from dozens of amphibious ships loaded with troops and equipment.  Aircraft carpet bombing the assault site.  Naval guns roaring.  Stunned defenders, shell-shocked, cowering and watching in disbelief.  Explosions, devastation, domination!  “Iron Fist” !!!
 
The exercise lasted one hour. 

… hourlong amphibious landing exercise carried out by the Marines and Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade … [1]

One hour … to master amphibious assault.  Wow.  That’s some serious dedication to training, isn’t it?
 
What did the exercise consist of? 

200 U.S. Marines and sailors along with 200 Japanese soldiers executed four waves of beach assaults. Equipment utilized therein included: combat rubber reconnaissance craft in the first wave; six Japanese amphibious assault vehicles (presumably the AAV7A1) in the second wave; followed by a Japanese air-cushioned landing craft (presumably the Landing Craft, Air Cushion built by Textron Systems) in the third wave. Meanwhile, two USMC AH-1Z Viper helicopter gunships (the successor to the legendary AH-1W Whiskey Cobra chopper) provided aerial reconnaissance and firepower.[1]

Let’s total up the immense amounts of amphibious equipment used in this exercise:
 

• Some rubber boats
• 6x Japanese AAV
• 1x Japanese LCAC
• 2x US helos

 
If that didn’t prepare the US Marines for amphibious operations, I don’t know what could.  The ground must have shaken under the weight of that kind of force.  The Chinese had to be quaking in their boots (or peeing their pants laughing), witnessing that exercise.  Seriously, is this the best we can do with our training time?
 

Amphibious Assault Force

This is an April Fool’s post, right?  Sadly, no.  This is what passes for a major exercise today.
 
 
 
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[1]The National Interest website, “Iron Fist 2025: USMC and JSDF Troops Train for Amphibious Warfare”, Christian D. Orr, 9-Mar-2025,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/iron-fist-2025-usmc-and-jsdf-troops-train-for-amphibious-warfare

MEU/ARG Issues

With the demise of informative DOT&E annual reports, we are left having to scratch around for breadcrumbs of information about the state of our military.  One such crumb is a Breaking Defense website article, undoubtedly intended as a praise-packed, puff piece, about the 2024 deployment of the 15^th MEU.  On the face of it, the deployment was a non-stop cascade of puppy dogs and kittens sliding down double rainbows and landing in pots of gold.  However, a careful reading between the lines reveals some surprising systemic problems that degraded the unit’s readiness and combat capability.  Let’s look closer.
 

Starting in January and spanning through most of 2024, the 15th MEU and Amphibious Squadron-5 completed nine major exercises; visited 11 foreign countries; responded to a typhoon that hit the Philippines; and completed 80 operations over the course of 10 months.

As an aside, why are we still doing 10 month deployments?  Does anyone remember the Navy’s Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP - 2014) of several years past that was going to optimize the deployment/training/maintenance cycle to ensure readiness and prevent extended deployments?  Yeah, that lasted about a day (see, “Deployments and OFRP”).
 
The deployment did not get off to a good start, losing one of its three amphibious ships, USS Boxer, almost immediately.
 

Just days after it initially deployed in April, the Boxer (LHD-4) was forced back to San Diego to fix a variety of maintenance issues.[1]

Even later in the deployment when Boxer eventually rejoined the ARG, ship maintenance issues continued.
 

But he [Capt. James Robinson, ARG commodore] did concede there was at least one “OAI” — an acronym short for “operations, activities and investments” — that was missed due to the ship’s maintenance problems.[1]

Ships were not the only equipment failures.  The ACV proved challenging, as well.
 

… MEU deployed with 12 ACVs in tow, and, he said, “it’s almost underwhelming to say that we learned a lot.”

There were challenges in understanding how to maintain the vehicles while deployed and concerns about corrosion prevention.[1]

This suggests that the Marine’s training with the ACV was significantly inadequate despite a decade or more of use and supposed thorough testing.  Corrosion prevention?  Seriously?  Aren’t these things designed to be immersed in salt water and be exposed to a salt-air environment for months on end?  How could corrosion possibly still be a problem and an unexpected problem, at that?
 

ACV - No one thought it would get wet or warm?

Another disturbing note was this,
 

The MEU also had to coordinate sending beach survey teams ahead of the ACVs to check that conditions were safe.[1]

The ACV is supposed to be able to handle less than perfect weather and physical conditions.  If not, if it can only be used in perfect conditions and hospitable locations then we have a nearly useless piece of equipment.  Combine this note with the history of ACV accidents and one can’t help but conclude that the vehicle is far less safe and effective than advertised.
 

At one point, even the water temperatures were cause for a concern. Dynan [Col. Sean Dynan, 15th MEU commanding officer] recalled that the waters in the Philippines were particularly hot, and there were questions about whether the vehicle’s cooling systems would cope.
 
“That was somewhat of a surprise,” he added.[1]

After all this time, water temperature effects were a surprise?  Really?  No one thought to test the vehicle in warm water?  The ACV’s first RFI dates back to 2011 and in the intervening 13 years no one thought to test the vehicle in warm water despite knowing that the Pacific would be a major area of employment?  What kind of geniuses were working on this program?
 
The ACV was not the only piece of equipment to experience challenges.
 

The MEU’s training and deployment also coincided with the Pentagon’s three-month-long grounding of the V-22 Osprey fleet, including the Marine Corps’ MV-22 variant.
 
… restrictions and intermittent V-22 Osprey groundings …
 
Due to where the MEU was operating, Dynan said the restrictions the Pentagon left in place after the Osprey fleets returned to flight didn’t affect operations. But the missed training time did mean that his flight crews had to work fast to regain qualifications and proficiency once the grounding was lifted in April.[1]

The MV-22 continues to be a problematic piece of equipment, useful only in very specific and restricted scenarios.  In any truly objective assessment, the MV-22 would have to be declared a very marginal success or an outright failure.
 
 
Discussion
 
As noted, we have no hard data to work with and must, instead, attempt to read between the lines and look for patterns.  Doing so reveals that the MEU/AGR have serious equipment and maintenance problems and that testing and training has been woefully inadequate.  This is true for both the Navy and Marines.  I suppose it’s good that the Marines have declared themselves out of the amphibious assault business (so why are they floating around on endless deployments?) because they seem to utterly lack the ability to execute a successful assault.
 
 
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[1]Breaking Defense website, “One deployment, three ships and a whole lot of challenges”, Justin Katz, 5-Feb-2025,
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/one-deployment-three-ships-and-a-whole-lot-of-challenges/

Philippines Strategy

You’ve probably noticed that several of ComNavOps’ fictional stories revolve around the Philippines.  This is not by random chance.  The strategic value of the Philippines cannot be overstated.  The country, along with Taiwan, forms two gigantic ‘forts’ that China must deal with in any war.
 
From China’s perspective, those two countries act as forward enemy bases that dominate the surrounding seas and impact any operations the Chinese would attempt.  Their removal from the strategic equations is imperative.  Ideally, China would turn the tables by seizing both countries and using them as forts against any American response.
 
Taiwan’s seizure (or ‘reunification’ as the Chinese would euphemistically put it) is absolutely mandatory for both strategic and cultural reasons.  Wisely or foolishly, China’s leadership has linked themselves to the seizure of Taiwan as a national and cultural imperative.  For those reasons, Taiwan will be the first operation in any war.
 
The Philippines present a somewhat different situation for China.  The Philippines cannot be allowed to become a US forward base but it is not necessarily a requirement that the country be physically seized and occupied.  Forcing Philippines to declare neutrality is almost as good as seizing it.  A declaration of neutrality would eliminate Philippines as a forward base for the US and would have the added benefit of not tying up any Chinese forces in an occupation. 
 
Ideally, of course, China would like the Philippines to enter a war as an ally of China, thereby allowing China to use it as a base without the difficulties of an invasion and occupation.
 
By far, the most likely course of action is that Philippines would declare neutrality rather than place themselves as a target between the US and China.
 
Neutrality, however, will not prevent China, which cares nothing for international laws, from occupying areas of the Philippines that it finds advantageous in its war efforts against the US.  This, of course, leaves Philippines in a bit of a no-win situation.
 
All of this is fairly obvious so where is this going?  Let’s consider scenarios in which the US has access to the use of the Philippines, either because the Philippines enters the war as an ally of the US or because Philippines declares neutrality and China ignores that and attempts to seize or operate from the country, thereby negating Philippines’ neutrality. 
 
In this case, the US would attempt to set up bases and, perhaps more importantly, surveillance assets (radar, elevated optical sensors, etc.).   Obviously, China is not going to sit back and allow that to occur without hindrance. This raises the scenario of the US having to fight to establish and operate a base – something that we haven’t had to do since Guadalcanal.  Do we have the capability to seize suitable land, set up a base while under fire, and defend that base well enough to keep it operational?
 
The answer is no and certainly not with the equipment, units, and training we have currently.  This strongly suggests that we should be developing – quickly! – the capability to seize, set up, and defend a major base.  I’ve often suggested that the Marine’s core mission should be port seizure and this type of operation would be a logical extension of that.  Note that the Army does have existing units dedicated to the seizure of existing airbases.
 
Seizure of land for a not yet existing base could range from ‘walk in unopposed’ to a full fledged, contested, amphibious assault depending on how extensively the Chinese manage to get established.  As we’ve thoroughly discussed, our ability to conduct an opposed landing is extremely limited as we lack naval gun support, sufficient ship-to-shore connectors to allow for attrition, armor, logistic support, sea bases (if we don’t seize a port), mines to protect our sea flanks, and mobile anti-air defenses to protect forces ashore.  In addition, our ability to establish local air superiority is highly suspect and would be largely limited to the understrength air wings of our carriers which would be hard pressed to conduct simultaneous air-to-air and ground support operations with just thirty or so combat aircraft per air wing.
 
 
As we contemplate seizing land and establishing a base, consider these questions:
 

• Do we have the ability to transport and very quickly (instantly!) set up anti-cruise and anti-ballistic missile defenses to protect a base?
• Do we have ground forces who have been trained for base defense?
• Can we transport armor to the Philippines for base defense.  Yes, we’ll certainly be facing Chinese armored forces.
• Do we have sufficient numbers of C-RAM (counter rocket, artillery, and mortar) weapons to defend a base against constant, high volume attacks?
• Do we have sufficient portable, mobile sensors to establish effective surveillance and early warning systems?
• Are we doctrinally willing, and trained, to move our Aegis ships in close to land to provide anti-air protection for the ground forces until they can establish their own defenses?
• Are we capable of quickly constructing hardened and/or underground hangars and fuel/weapons storage?
• Do we sufficient airbase repair equipment that can be transported to the site?
• Do we have sufficient engineering units to build a base under fire, continuously repair it, and keep it operational under fire?
• Can we operate modern, finicky aircraft under primitive conditions with few spare parts, computers, and no modern state of the art repair facilities?  That’s what a forward, contested base would be, after all.  Our abysmal aircraft readiness rates during peacetime suggest that this, alone, almost rules out establishing an airbase in the Philippines.  If you can’t keep aircraft operational, there’s little point having an airbase.  If you recall, we were only able to sporadically operate F4F Wildcats from Guadalcanal and they were robust, easy to maintain aircraft by comparison, requiring only a wrench and duct tape to repair!

 
This kind of thought exercise is exactly what the US military should be doing all day, every day and yet we’re not.  Not even a little bit.  Instead we’re engaged in all manner of social programs, diversity, gender issues, environmental issues, climate concerns, etc.
 
We must start planning for the China war.  If the war never comes, that’s fine but failure to plan for it is dereliction of duty at its most extreme.

Paid in Full, Paid in Blood

The previous post about landing craft was informative and somewhat disappointing as far as the comments are concerned.  Too many people want to ignore the lessons that we paid in blood to learn in WWII.  People want to acquire large landing craft outfitted with all manner of sensors and weapons and then cram dozens/hundreds of troops and vehicles on the craft while completely ignoring the lessons of dispersal of risk, efficiency of unloading, procurement cost, and ease of production.
 
Similarly, many people are ignoring the lessons about how to conduct an amphibious assault.  What is the proper role of a carrier group?  What is the role of aircraft?  What is the job of the escorts?  What is the expenditure rate of munitions in an assault?  How much weight of munitions do we need for fire support and how can we delivery the required volume?  We’re also ignoring the history of helo survivability over a battlefield.  And so on.
 
All good discussions must begin with a consideration of history and its lessons.
 
Before we even begin to contemplate changing doctrine and tactics, we’d better be absolutely certain we understand why the doctrine and tactics exist instead of whatever it is we’re thinking about doing.  We learned our lessons in WWII and paid the blood bill for the learning.  That doesn’t mean we can never change anything but it does mean we’d better be awfully sure we’re making a change for the better and, again, that means thoroughly understanding what already exists and why.

 
We also need to keep the K.I.S.S. principle firmly in mind.  Murphy still roams the battlefield and offers no second chances.
 
Think about it.
 
Think hard about it.
 
Think very hard about it and then think again before you abandon established, proven doctrine and tactics.

Landing Craft

Problem
 
Amphibious assaults?  A moot concept since we have no landing craft.
 
Wait, what?  Of course we have landing craft!  We have the LCAC, LCU, and LCM.  Well, yes, we have those craft but none of them are initial wave assault craft.  They’re follow on craft for sustainment after the assault site has been secured.
 
The only initial wave landing craft we have is the Marine’s AAV/ACV which is not really a landing craft in the traditional sense of a small boat that can delivery troops to the beach and return to the host ship to get more troops for subsequent waves.  The AAV/ACV is a one-way, amphibious, light armored personnel carrier (APC).
 
Let’s do the math.  An AAV/ACV can carry around 15 combat equipped troops and a MEU (we’ll discuss a MEU but this scales up to whatever size and, yes, we recognize that a MEU, on its own, is not capable of conducting an opposed landing) has around a dozen AAV/ACV so that represents a landing capacity of around 180 troops that can be delivered to the beach.  The remainder of the MEU’s 2200 troops have to find some other way to get ashore.  That’s an initial assault capacity of around 8% of the MEU.
 
A MEU has around 16 transport helos/MV-22s, each of which can carry 15-20 combat loaded troops but, again, these are not initial assault assets.  Helos are not survivable over a battlefield.  They’re follow on transports. 
 
Are 180 troops per MEU really enough to conduct an opposed landing?  Of course not!  Thus, we have a problem.
 
 
Solution
 
So, what’s the solution?  I’ve heard many people recommend foreign “landing craft” such as the CB90, Jehu (Finnish), Raptor (Russian), etc be used as landing craft.  Claimed benefits include a [very small] degree of stealth, speed, armament, and the ability to fit six or so craft in the well deck of an amphibious ship.
 

CB90

Jehu - Note the narrow, restricted exit ramp and imagine
fifteen or so combat laden troops trying to rapidly
debark, one at a time, under fire.

Analysis

 
Let’s take a closer, analytical look at this type of boat in the landing craft role.
 
Troop Capacity – This size boat claims to be able to carry 15-20 or so troops, likely less when the troops are combat equipped.  Let’s be generous and use a figure of 20.  For 6 boats, that’s 120 troops per assault wave.  Is that an assault or a school board meeting?  By comparison, a WWII attack transport carried around 24 landing craft, each of which could carry around 30 troops for a wave of 720 troops.
 
Cargo Capacity – None.  These types of craft have no cargo capacity.  That’s all there is to say about that.  The troops would land with whatever they can carry on their person.
 
Debarkation – One of the constant characteristics across these types of boats are the requirement for the troops to debark via narrow passageways, single file, slowly.  While some claim to have restricted, emergency egress, it is, again, an exceedingly slow and cumbersome process.  Under fire, these boats are death traps for the troops.  Arguably, the most important characteristic of an effective landing craft is the ability to rapidly discharge the troops while under fire.  The WWII Higgins boat allowed the troops to egress, line abreast, several at a time, simultaneously, across the bow ramp.  In an emergency, dozens of troops could simultaneously egress over the open sides.
 
Cost -  This type of craft costs several million dollars apiece, or more, which is way too expensive for a niche craft that is likely to suffer high rates of attrition and needs to be procured in large numbers.
 
 
Conclusion
 
It is patently clear that these types of craft are not suitable for amphibious assaults.  They are suited (and this may even be overly optimistic) for the kind of tiny raid operations or patrol duties they were designed for.  We need to stop looking for foreign landing craft because there are none that are suited for the purpose.  If we want a landing craft, we need to go back to the drawing board and design a dirt-simple, modern, Higgins boat and be done with it. 
 
Of course, such a landing craft would require a radically re-designed amphibious ship to make use of it … you know, something like a WWII Attack Transport (APA) but that’s a separate, though intimately related, topic.
 
Given that ComNavOps sees very little strategic need for future amphibious assaults and given that the Marines have publicly stated that they are out of the assault business, this entire discussion is probably moot but at least we now know what won’t work and can stop bringing up these types of boats.
 

Gaza Pier

ComNavOps has been keeping an interested eye on the Gaza aid pier (or causeway) as a moderately realistic simulation of a combat unloading operation involving one component of the Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore (JLOTS).  Would it work as advertised?  How effective and efficient would it be?
 
Surprisingly, the pier has already been shut down. 

… Pentagon announced the "Gaza pier" will be dismantled due to damage.[1]

Here’s a time line of the pier:
 

• Mar 7 – Biden announces Gaza pier plan
• Mar 9 – U.S. Army support ship General Frank S. Besson leaves to begin construction
• May 17 -  pier opens
• May 28 - pier ops suspended after piece breaks off
• Jun 8 - operations resume after repairs
• Jun 15 – Pentagon announces pier will be torn down

  
So, what can we learn from the Gaza pier effort?
 
The first noteworthy aspect of the pier was how long it took to build.  President Biden announced the pier on 7-Mar-2024 and construction was completed 17-May.  That’s around a 70 day time frame.  As a point of comparison, the Normandy Mulberry Harbors were put into operation in less than two weeks despite being hugely larger and more complicated and despite being done under combat conditions.
 
It appears that the pier was in operation approximately 18 days out of its 30 days of existence.  That’s disappointing.  That would not effectively support an amphibious operation.
 
The next noteworthy aspect is the pier’s apparent fragility.  While weather can be severe on any body of water, the Mediterranean is not exactly the North Atlantic or a Pacific typhoon.  I never heard a detailed description of the weather conditions that disabled the pier but there were no reports of any major storms.  One would have expected that such a key element of an amphibious assault would be a good deal more robust. 
 

Mulberry Causeway

 
Conclusion
 
So, what are we to conclude from this ill-fated exercise?  Well we see that the concept has not been exercised nearly enough and under nearly realistic enough conditions for nearly sufficient periods of time.  In other words, we’ve established a key piece of our amphibious concept without sufficiently testing it.  Some might be tempted to try to defend the pier/causeway by claiming that it just encountered some bad luck but … hey … isn’t that what war is?  If you can’t weather some bad luck and difficult conditions (to the extent there were any?) then you haven’t got a combat-robust system.
 
Therefore, we conclude that the pier/causeway is not a viable component of the JLOTS system and this must, in turn, make us question the entire JLOTS system.
 
The only way to prove otherwise is through extensive testing.  Come on, Pentagon.  How about a long term, realistic test?  It would seem mandatory, now, since the system failed its actual use test quite badly.
 
 
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[1]Redstate website, “RIP to Biden's Gaza Pier As He Chalks Up Another Foreign Policy Disaster”, Bonchie, 15-Jun-2024,
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/06/15/rip-to-bidens-gaza-pier-as-he-chalks-up-another-foreign-policy-disaster-n2175519

Gaza Aid Port

Biden has announced plans to build a port, of sorts, to enable ships to deliver aid to Gaza.  As noted in an Axios article, the aid effort has been thwarted by the lack of access to a deep water port. 

Efforts were already underway to coordinate shipments by sea but the biggest complication was the lack of a deep-water port to enable big ships to dock and off load aid.[1]
 
The U.S. military will establish a temporary pier in the sea off the Gaza coast with a causeway that will allow trucks to bring aid to shore … [1]
 
… it will be at least a few weeks before it's operational.[1]

Update:  Pentagon spokesman, Gen. Pat Rider had this to say about the timing,

Finally, in terms of timing, we're working to set this up as quickly as possible, but we expect that it will take several weeks to plan and execute.[2]

Several weeks???  This should be a canned plan, sitting in a planning book.  It's a basic operation, not even a combat operation.  This should be about a week to set up.  As an example, the American Mulberry was operational 12 days after D-Day and that was a much larger operation executed under combat conditions and in extremely unfavorable weather.

This operation illustrates a couple of points relevant to our military discussions:

 

• It is not possible to logistically support a military operation of any size by air.  Support/supplies must come from ships.
• A readily accessible port is a mandatory requirement for any overseas military operation and is often the purpose behind an amphibious assault (Normandy D-Day, for example).

 
This is as close to an actual combat amphibious assault logistics operation as you can get in peacetime.  It is going to be fascinating to see how the military goes about establishing this port.  In theory, this is exactly what the US military should be able to do in their sleep.  Can the US build a port/causeway in the time frame required?  Given our failure in recent logistic exercises and our failure to surge amphibious ships when required, this is by no means certain.

Mulberry Causeway at Normandy, WWII

 
On a related note, this places the US perilously close to becoming involved in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.  I hope someone has thought through the ramifications.  This also showcases the highly vulnerable state of a port in a combat action.  Either side, or a third party actor, could opt to launch an attack to disrupt the operation.  Will the US put any defensive assets and policies in place and what will our response be to an attack?
 
 
Warning:  It should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway:  this is purely a military analysis of the operation and does not indicate any political position, pro or con, towards either side in this conflict.  There will be no political comments allowed.  Period.
 
 
 
 
_________________________________

 
[1]Axios website, “Biden to announce "emergency mission" to build port in Gaza for aid shipments”, Barak Ravid, 7-Mar-2024,
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/07/biden-port-gaza-humanitarian-aid-state-union

[2]https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2024/03/09/a-man-a-plana-temporary-port-in-gaza-are-you-nuts-n2171143

Assault Carrier

Over the course of the blog, many commenters have suggested using the big deck LHA/LHD (LHx) as baby carriers.  We’ve discredited this notion in terms of traditional carrier operations (see, “LightningCarrier”) due to the limited size of the air wing and the complete lack of ability to operate E-2 Hawkeye AEW, tankers, and E/A-18G Growler EW aircraft that are crucial to combat effective air operations.
 
Other commenters have suggested using supercarriers for ground support to make up for the complete absence of naval gunfire.  This is a non-starter as the role of the carrier in an amphibious assault is interdiction of enemy strikes and reinforcements and the proper place to do that is hundreds or thousands of miles from the assault site.  It is suicidal folly to ‘tie’ a carrier to one location which is what would be required for a carrier to provide direct ground support for an amphibious assault.  And, lest we forget, we also lack a true ground attack naval aircraft.
 
However, the possibility exists that a dedicated, small, assault carrier could be useful in supporting amphibious assault operations.  Well, wait … don’t we already have ground support carriers in the form of our big deck amphibious ships (LHA/LHD)?
 
Yes, we do, but not effectively.  Consider, currently, the aviation component of an assault is housed on the LHx ships of which we only have a few (9 total LHA/LHD) and they have very limited air wings.  A typical LHx air wing consists of:

 

That’s a limited capability mix that lacks the number of aircraft to be effective in any of its roles.  Six strike aircraft can’t provide effective ground support, a dozen tiltrotors can’t transport a useful number of troops and gear, and four heavy lift helos can’t provide rapid, efficient heavy equipment transport.  Like most mixes, the air wing is a compromise that can do a little bit of everything but nothing well and ‘nothing well’ is not how you succeed in combat.  We’ve thoroughly analyzed the shortcomings of the LHx as regards aviation (see, “Aviation Amphibious Assault Ships”)  and provided the rationale for splitting off aviation from assault (see, “Separate Aviation FromAmphibious”) so I won’t belabor it any further, here.
  
The LHx came about because the Marines, institutionally terrified of being abandoned by the Navy (the Guadalcanal legacy) tried to combine the functions of both a carrier and an assault transport and, not surprisingly, managed to construct an unaffordable monstrosity that places too many eggs in one basket while performing neither function well.  So, why don’t we try separating the two functions into dedicated ships, each optimized for their role?  We previously discussed dedicated attack transports (see, “Attack Transport - APA”).
 
Having established the problems with an LHx and the rationale for separating the aviation and assault functions, let’s now consider what a dedicated amphibious assault aviation support ship (an assault carrier) would conceptually look like.
 
Focus – Separating the aviation component from assault allows us to eliminate the transport function leaving the carrier able to focus on ground attack/support.  This is crucial for a ship that will, hopefully, be substantially smaller than a full size carrier.
 
There is no need for transport helos.  They’re inefficient at their function and they’re non-survivable over a battlefield as amply demonstrated in Vietnam, Soviet Afghanistan, US Afghanistan, and elsewhere.  If we really think we need helos for some limited aspect of logistics support, we can easily provide a dedicated transport/cargo helo carrier by converting a merchant ship.
 
Aircraft – This is key to determining what an assault carrier would look like.  The choice of aircraft will determine the size and characteristics of the carrier.
 
Stealth aircraft are not needed and, indeed, stealth is largely useless when providing close range ground support (CAS).  The enemy can see you and the main threat is guns (ZSU-ish weapons) and small heat seeking, Stinger-type, shoulder launched anti-air missiles.  Radar stealth offers no benefit against either of those threats.
 
What is needed is an aircraft with the best possible combination of the following characteristics:
 

• Inexpensive so that appropriate numbers and replacements can be procured
• Armored for maximum airframe and pilot survivability
• Redundant and manual control systems enabling the aircraft to absorb tremendous amounts of damage
• Minimal IR signature to mitigate the main threat of Stinger-type missiles
• Minimal complexity which allows for easy repair/maintainability for excellent availability rates and combat damage repair
• Low maintenance per flight hour
• High sortie rates
• Excellent low speed maneuverability
• Minimal carrier operating requirements such as no, or simple, catapults and arresting gear
• Maximum number of weapons (hard points) as opposed to payload weight maximums.  In CAS, it’s far more useful to have a large number of weapons rather than a high payload weight.  To illustrate, it would be far more useful to have an aircraft with, say, ten weapon stations (hard points), each rated for a 500 lb bomb (5000 lb total payload) than an aircraft with four weapons, each rated for a 2000 lb (8000 lb total payload).

 
Having identified the desirable aircraft characteristics, let’s consider some candidate aircraft.
 
F-35B - The F-35B is often touted as a CAS aircraft but, in reality, is ill-suited for the ground attack/support role.  It is a large, fuel hogging, maintenance intensive, complex, non-damage resilient, limited hard point aircraft with staggeringly atrocious availability rates.  In addition, it is hideously expensive to procure and operate.
 
A-10 - The A-10 has many of the characteristics we’d like such as armor, redundant/manual flight controls, low maintenance, high sortie rates, and 11 weapon stations.  Of course, a naval version of the A-10 does not exist and would have to be developed.
 
F-16 – The F-16 is fairly maneuverable at moderately lower speeds but has only 6 (possibly 7?) weapon hard points and, like the A-10, does not exist as a carrier variant.  It also lacks any useful ground sensors, is unarmored, and lacks rugged, redundant controls.
 
A-1 Skyraider - A candidate you might not think of is the prop driven A-1 Skyraider.  It is incredibly simple (compared to a jet), free by current standards, easily maintainable and repairable (a wrench and duct tape), armored, highly maneuverable at low speeds, has very high availability rates, has 15 weapon stations, and can use simple catapults and arresting gear.  Further, it is a carrier aircraft and would need no development, whatsoever!
 
It is clear that high performance jets are not desirable for the aviation support role.  The best match to the desired aircraft characteristics is the A-1 Skyraider!  This, then, is the conceptual basis for an assault aircraft.  Having determined that, we can now focus on the design of the ship, itself.
 
Air Wing – Having chosen a conceptual aircraft, we now need to decide how many aircraft are needed in the air wing.  The answer, of course, is ‘as many as possible’.  Well, that’s not very helpful.  A better answer is that the number of aircraft is derived from a combination of factors such as the resultant carrier size/cost, combat effectiveness, dispersal of risk, etc.  A reasonable answer would seem to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 aircraft.  More than that and the carrier gets too large and costly.  Less than that and combat effectiveness drops precipitously.
 
Carrier – The first determination is whether we need a straight deck or angled deck.  Ideally, we’d like a straight deck, operated like WWII carrier, with no catapults and simple arresting gear.  If we could launch B-25’s off a Yorktown class carrier, I’d like to believe that we could design a Skyraider type aircraft that could launch unassisted.  Elimination of catapults would greatly reduce mechanical and utility (steam or electric) requirements which reduces the size and cost of the ship.  Assuming we can do this, we’ll be able to use a straight deck design which, again, reduces the size and cost of the ship.
 
As a point of reference, the US Navy WWII escort carriers were around 500 ft long and 10,000 – 20,000 tons with air wings of 30+ aircraft.  That seems like a good conceptual starting point for a design.
 
If we can keep the cost low enough, we can afford to build the carriers in sufficient numbers and be able to replace the inevitable losses of a vessel that is purposely placed in harm’s way.
 
The final consideration in this discussion is the fact that I don’t think there’s a strategic or operational need for amphibious assaults so the entire discussion is moot.  However, if we did want to maintain an amphibious capability, an assault carrier would be a step in the right direction though ultimately pointless without lots of large caliber naval guns.

Amphibious Assault Size

Our peacetime paradigm has led us to believe that war is a small affair:  a few ships, a company of soldiers, a platoon with a few missiles (according to the Marines!), a carrier and a couple of escorts, etc.  We’ve forgotten the immense scale of effort that a true war requires.  Let’s take a look at historical amphibious assaults from WWII and remind ourselves of the size of the effort required for success.
 
 
Guadalcanal - 11,000 troops initial assault, 1^st Marine Div, plus 6,000 additional men from various battalions over the next few weeks;  initial force proved too small and required additional Marine and Army reinforcements
 
Tarawa/Makin - 35,000 troops, 36 transports, 2^nd Marine Div.; 8th, 2nd, 6th, 10th, 18th Regiments plus other battalions; 27^th Army Div., 165^th Regiment, 3^rd Battalion/105^th Infantry Regiment
 
Kwajalein – 85,000 troops,4^th Marine Div, 7^th Army Div, 300 ships
 
Eniwetok – 3500 troops, 22^nd Marine Reg., 106^th Infantry Regiment
 
Saipan - 60,000 – 70,000 troops, 2^nd Marine Div, 4^th Marine Div, 27^th Infantry Div
 
Guam - 36,000 troops, 3^rd Marine Div, 77^th Infantry Div
 
Tinian – 15,000 troops, 2^nd Marine Div, 4^th Marine Div
 
Peleliu – 28,000 troops, 1^st Marine Div, 81^st Infantry Div
 
Luzon - 175,000 troops;  6^th Army, 800 ships
 
Iwo Jima – 110,000 troops, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th Marine Div;  500+ ships
 
Okinawa - 200,000 troops, 1^st, 2^nd, 6^th Marine Div, 7^th, 27^th, 77^th, 96^th Infantry Div
 
Normandy – 173,000 troops, 4^th, 82^nd, 90^st, 101^st, 1^st, 29^th Infantry Divisions plus several British and Canadian divisions
 
Desert Storm – While not an amphibious assault and not even remotely approximating a high end, global, peer war, it still involved some 600,000+ troops of all types.

 
We’ve come to believe that an amphibious assault can be conducted by a platoon, company, or, at the high end, a 2000 man Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU).  This is simply not true.  The best any of those can do is a minor raid and, in the context of a peer war, those would be very minor annoyance raids, at best.
 
In addition to noting the size of the ground forces, check the size of some of the naval components:  up to several hundred ships!  Our entire current Navy would be insufficient to conduct a single assault.
 
We’ve completely forgotten the magnitude of the forces necessary to wage a high end war.  The only point to this post is that we have got to start remembering what real war entails and start training for and factoring in the sheer magnitude of: 

• Ground force size (tens to hundreds of thousands of troops)
• Logistics required to support massive ground forces
• Horrifying attrition
• Naval force size assets (hundreds of ships)
• Industrial manufacturing capacity (see attrition)
• Munitions consumption on a staggering scale

  
Our pathetic exercises involving platoons and companies or a few ships is so insufficient and inadequate as to border on criminal (in the figurative sense).  We have to scale our exercises up to semi-realistic sizes.  We need to exercise actual divisions, not virtual simulations.  We need to assemble and exercise several dozen ships at a time and learn how to command and control them as well as keep them supplied with munitions and fuel (guaranteed we can’t).
 
Almost none of this involves the pursuit of new technology which seems to be the military’s main focus and default solution to any problem or question.  We are so far off the correct path we can’t even see it from where we are!  The Navy is, by their own public statements, facing an imminent Chinese war …  …  and they’re downsizing the fleet!  In what alternate reality does that make sense?
 
As I keep saying, we’ve forgotten what real war is.  Perhaps this post will help us remember.

Iwo Jima Class LPH and Vertical Assault

The Iwo Jima class carrier was the first purpose built vertical assault (helicopter) amphibious ship.  In this post, we’re going to take a look at its original design rationale, abilities, and limitations and examine whether those have remained relevant today.
 
Here are some basic specifications for the seven ship class, built in the 1960’s: 

Iwo Jima Class LPH

The amphibious assault helicopter carrier (Landing Platform, Helicopter - LPH) traces its origin back to a 1946 Marine Corps study on the effects of atomic weapons on amphibious assaults.[1]  Marine leadership, 

… concluded that a few atomic bombs could easily destroy the concentrated shipping and also the beachhead of any classical amphibious assault.[1]

As described by Friedman[1], the Marines settled on the helicopter as the means to achieve physical dispersion of both ships at sea and troops on land.  The greater range of the helicopter would allow the host ships to more widely disperse and would allow the troops to land at more widely dispersed locations thus avoiding the concentrations that an atomic bomb would easily destroy.
 
Their decision was strongly influenced by the belief that helicopters would quickly and markedly advance in capabilities (range, speed, lift capacity) – a belief that turned out, disappointingly, to be only partially met.  Friedman goes on to describe some of the helicopter development issues which is, itself, a fascinating topic but outside the scope of this post.  I encourage you to read it yourself, if you’re so inclined.  It’s well worth the time.
 
The Marines, while eagerly adopting the helicopter as the assault transport vehicle also recognized the vulnerability of the helicopter on the battlefield.  Regarding helicopter transport capacity, 

Even larger helicopters were proposed, but the Marines were reluctant to adopt one that could lift many more than twenty men in view of the high vulnerability of individual craft.[1][emphasis added]

The Marines recognized that concentrating greater numbers of troops in a vehicle that was inherently non-survivable would be a mistake.  In comparison, today’s MV-22 transport is rated for 24-32 troops which raises the concentration of risk issue that the Marines were afraid of.  To be fair, most sources state that the MV-22 troop capacity is not actually achievable in real world applications.
 
What did helicopter assault mean for overall requirements?  The Marines were focused on division-strength assaults, 

The Marines concentrated on the requirements of a divisional assault, which were considerable. For example, a January 1951 study envisaged lifting 10,000 men and 3,000 to 4,000 short tons of material.  Total lift, then, would be 520 HRSs [ed. Sikorsky H-19] or 208 HR2Ss, which in turn would require, in the former case, 20 escort carriers with 20 helicopters each, accommodating 150 to 200 tons of cargo, 500 to 600 assault marines, and a 200-man helicopter squadron.[1]

This focus on division level assaults was a far cry from our current MEU/ARG (3-ship Amphibious Ready Group) and disaggregated ARG which employs the three ships of the ARG separately.  Of course, in the event of a genuine assault operation, multiple MEU/ARGs would aggregate to form MEBs (Marine Expeditionary Brigade) and MEFs (Marine Expeditionary Force) although these aggregations are never exercised and constitute a theoretical capability, only.  Further, with the elimination of tanks, reduction in artillery, elimination of heavy mortars, and lack of anti-air vehicles it is highly debatable that MEBs/MEFs are even combat effective anymore.
 
The Marines also considered the tactical usage of the helicopter, 

Tactically, the Marines considered a flight of ten helicopters best for effective control, so that helicopter carriers were generally designed to accommodate multiples of that unit.[1]

We see then, that the Marines of the time were focused on getting large numbers of helos/troops on the ground quickly as opposed to our current concept of slow, drawn out, one-at-a-time MV-22 landings due to the 250 ft aircraft-to-aircraft separations and immense cleared areas required for landing.
 
To their immense credit, the Marines didn’t just come up with wild ideas and implement them without any proof of concept - as we do today - they conducted actual exercises.  For example, 

… May 1948, 8 helicopters from the Palau simulated a full helicopter attack of 184 aircraft flying from six CVEs, to lift a complete regimental combat team which would seize a strategic crossroads inland of the beach.  … each HRP [Piasecki HRP tandem rotor helicopter] carried six passengers about ten miles from the carrier under heavy fighter cover.[1]

Note the use of fighter cover.  The exercises were tactically realistic as opposed to the unrealistic, set piece theater performances we call exercises today.
 
Following tests, the WWII escort carrier USS Thetis Bay was converted for helicopter operations to further test out the concept.
 
At that point, the Marines seemed fully committed to helicopter assault.  A Sep-1954 report stated, 

… over the next ten to fifteen years most existing attack cargo and transport (AKA and APA) ships would be replaced by helicopter carriers.  “This will be occasioned by the VTOL aircraft becoming the principal means of placing personnel ashore under assault conditions.  Supporting personnel and heavy equipment will still be landed by water-borne means but the majority of assault troops will be air-landed.”[1]

Ultimately, a new design LPH, the Iwo Jima class, was built along with several Essex class conversions.  The purpose-designed Iwo Jima class, not surprisingly, offered several significant advantages over the Essex conversions.  Even so, the design was not without its flaws, 

The amphibious force commanders criticized the Iwo Jima design for its “complete lack of landing craft, so that it is of doubtful utility under non-flying conditions and must depend on other types with landing craft to give it an over-the-beach capacity.[1]

This flaw eventually led to the development of the LHA design which incorporated both aviation and  a well deck to support waterborne landing craft.  Interestingly, we have returned to exactly the original flawed design with the new America class variants which have no well decks.
 
 
Discussion
 
Let’s examine several aspects of the original vertical assault concept that birthed the LPH.
 
Rationale
 
As noted, the original rationale was dispersal of ships and troops in response to the threat of atomic bombs.  The original Marine thinking was dominated by the fear of atomic warfare.  With the advent of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), that is no longer a concern.  Any use of atomic weapons would immediately escalate the war to a global nuclear war and eliminate the need for a localized amphibious assault.  In other words, no one is going to bother with an amphibious assault while waging a global nuclear war.  Thus, the original rationale is no longer valid and yet we have not modified our current thinking to account for it.
 
Strengths
 

• Helos allow the rapid transport of troops from a greater distance than waterborne landing craft.
• Troops can be delivered to safer or more strategically beneficial locations rather than to a central troop/beach concentration although safer locations also imply less operationally relevant and useful.
• The greater range of the helos allows greater separation of the helicopter carriers.

 
Limitations

• Bad weather may ground aviation.
• Lack of waterborne landing craft prevents any other means of assault.
• Helo assault is limited to troops and light cargo.  Heavy equipment, tanks, armored vehicles, etc. cannot be transported by air.
• Helos are extremely vulnerable to even modest anti-air defenses.
• Helo carriers have very limited wave transport capacity.  For example, 20 helos per wave x 15-20 troops per helo = 300-400 troops per wave and that’s just troops, no equipment.  It would require 5-7 waves, over many hours or multiple days, to get the full troop complement ashore and that assumes no helo attrition.  The reality is that any reasonable helo attrition would likely result in a portion of the troops never getting ashore and certainly not in a timely manner.
• Limited by the need/availability of suitable cleared landing sites; such sites can be reasonably anticipated by the enemy and become fire traps as demonstrated in Vietnam.

 
Sustainment

The original Marine leadership was focused on division level assaults.  What they failed to address was sustainment.  While simply moving troops ashore is easy (ignoring the extreme vulnerability of the helicopter and the potential lack of suitable landing sites), sustainment via helicopter is not.  In fact, it is impossible.  The logistic supply demands of a division in combat are staggeringly huge and the cargo carrying capacity of a helicopter is vanishingly small.  This remains an unexplained – and hand waved away – weakness in today’s various vertical assault concepts (helos, MV-22, well deck-less LHAs, etc.) as well as the Commandant’s dispersed, hidden, platoon size missile shooters concept.  It is not possible to sustain an assault using helicopters.
 
 
Summary
  
The original rationale for the LPH and vertical assault was dispersal due to the threat of atomic weapons.  As, discussed, this is no longer a valid concern.
 
It is noteworthy that the original Marines identified significant weaknesses in the concept including the extreme vulnerability of helos to anti-air defenses and the absence of waterborne landing craft as an alternative.  Other weaknesses included the inability to transport heavy equipment, the limited number of troops that can be transported per wave, and the impossibility of sustaining an assault using vertical transport.
 
We see, then, that vertical assault is an inherently flawed concept that was justified only by the extreme atomic threat.  With no realistic atomic threat today, one has to ask why we’re still pursuing the flawed vertical assault concept?
 
Where does this leave us today?  For starters, we’ve begun repeating the original mistakes such as the absence of waterborne landing craft in the early variants of the America class LHA.  Additional problems include the extreme vulnerability of vertical landing aircraft to anti-air defenses, first noted by the Marines back in the original concept development.  In fact, the threat to helos has increased markedly over the years with the advent of small, portable, shoulder launched, heat seeking, anti-air missiles of the Stinger type.  Vertical landing aircraft are simply not survivable over a defended battlefield as has been repeatedly demonstrated in the real world (Vietnam, Soviet Afghanistan, US Afghanistan, etc.).
 
The inability to transport heavy equipment by air continues, today, and is a serious weakness in the concept.  This limitation relegates any assault to a light infantry effort only and makes the enormous cost and resources dedicated to such a limited capability highly questionable.
 
The need for secure, cleared landing sites has only gotten substantially worse with the advent of the MV-22 which requires enormous cleared areas and huge separations between aircraft to the point that a massed assault is simply not possible.  Landings will have to be a very slow, one-at-a-time affair that is ideal for enemy defensive fire sequentially focused on each landing aircraft in turn.
 
Despite clearly and correctly identifying the inherent flaws in the vertical assault concept, Marine leadership pushed ahead with vertical assault in the belief that the atomic threat was more significant than the known weaknesses.  One can only speculate whether the Marines would have adopted vertical assault if there had been no perceived atomic threat.
 
With no realistic atomic threat today, one has to ask why we’re pursuing an inherently flawed concept?
 
Worse, we have taken the concept and reduced it from a full, divisional level effort and capability to a light infantry effort with no supporting tanks, armor, artillery, heavy mortars, or mobile anti-air vehicles.  Is the staggering cost to build and operate 30+ amphibious ships worthwhile to deliver light infantry ashore?
 
It would seem that vertical amphibious assault is an example of inertia.  The helo assault was established and continues just because it exists.  It exists because it exists.  We need to re-examine this 1940’s era concept in light of the known flaws and, especially, modern defenses which have rendered helos even more vulnerable than they were originally.  The cost/risk to benefit ratio does not support continued vertical assault.
 
 
 
___________________________

 
[1]Norman Friedman, “U.S. Aircraft Carriers, An Illustrated Design History”, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1983, p.359-370.

Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 Eliminated

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]

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. 

1. 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!
   
   
2. 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?
   
   
3. If ACB 2 serves no purpose, why maintain ACB 1?

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.
 
 
 
____________________________

 
[1]Stars and Stripes website, “Navy Seabee battalion honored in decommissioning ceremony after 80 years of building and fighting”, Caitlyn Burchett, 3-Mar-2023,
https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2023-03-03/gator-bees-decommissioning-9334218.html