Bold Alligator Scaled Back

The Armed Forces of the United States and the Navy, as our focus on this blog, exist to fight wars.  There is no other mission.  Everything else is a secondary, time wasting exercise.  If we aren’t fighting a war then we should be preparing for war.  Instead, the Navy’s time is filled with useless tasks that detract from the main mission.  A case in point is the humanitarian assistance that is being provided to hurricane areas at the expense of combat training.  As USNI News website describes it (1),

“The Navy and Marine Corps’ Bold Alligator 17 international amphibious exercise will still take place this month but will be scaled down due to ongoing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.”

“However, due to ongoing HA/DR missions in Puerto Rico, many of the forces set to participate in the major live exercise will not be available anymore.”

So one exercise had to be scaled back a bit.  What’s the big deal?  Well, the big deal is that Bold Alligator is not just a small exercise.  It is the main amphibious exercise for the Marines/Navy. 

“Bold Alligator … is now the East Coast’s premiere amphibious force training exercise.”

Worse, the exercise, despite being the main training exercise, is only occasionally conducted as a live exercise so it is absolutely vital that the opportunity for live work be taken.

“Bold Alligator was last conducted as a live exercise in 2014, with the 2015 installment meant to be a simulated event. Last year’s live exercise was postponed a year, with the services opting instead to conduct a pierside live, virtual and constructive event to prepare for this year’s highly integrated exercise between traditional amphibious forces and the carrier strike group needed to help set the conditions for amphibious operations.”

Does it really matter if a ship or two misses the exercise?

“Expeditionary Strike Group 2 leadership was set to serve as the Commander of the Amphibious Task Force aboard amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD-3). Now, ESG-2 and Kearsarge are no longer available for BA 17, along with 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), amphibious transport dock USS New York(LPD-21), dock landing ship USS Oak Hill (LSD-50), hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH-20), aviation logistics support container ship SS Wright (T-AVB 3), and elements of Naval Expeditionary Combat Command and 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing – all of which are tied up with the ongoing HA/DR response, according to a U.S. Fleet Forces Command statement.”

That’s a lot of assets that will miss the premier combat training exercise of its type and a rare and vital chance for live training.  The very reason for the existence of the exercise is being curtailed.

“On the Marine Corps side, without Kearsarge and other amphibious ships, many planned amphibious landing events have been canceled … “

So, a vital and rare opportunity, which only comes once every two or three years, is going to be watered down and many units will miss it entirely so that the Navy and Marines can deliver food and water?  Let me repeat.  The Navy has only one mission – war or training for war.

The U.S. government has many assets and organizations at its disposal that can provide humanitarian assistance but the military should not be one of them.  Humanitarian assistance missions degrades the readiness of our forces, puts unnecessary wear and tear on equipment, and racks up precious flight hours on aircraft. 

This is a shining example of the failure of the Navy to say “no” to a non-mission essential task request.  The Navy’s failure to say no is why we have ships and crews sailing with lapsed certifications.  Instead of training and perhaps learning basic seamanship, navigation, and combat, we have crews spending their time delivering supplies.  Instead of providing our ships and aircraft with maintenance to restore readiness, we’re sending them to deliver supplies – a job that any commercial cargo ship can do far more cost effectively and efficiently.

We are tasking our Navy with gender issues, sensitivity training, diversity programs, biofuel experimentation, climate change planning – in short, everything but war and training for war.

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(1)USNI News website, “Bold Alligator 17 Exercise Scaled Down Due to Ongoing Humanitarian Assistance Mission in Puerto Rico”, Megan Eckstein, 13-Oct-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/10/13/bold-alligator-17-exercise-scaled-due-ongoing-humanitarian-assistance-mission-puerto-rico

Fight Like You Train - Part 2

Regarding the previous post, reader GAB made a comment that is too astute to let go without amplification.  The point of the post was that we are not following our own doctrine as we train for amphibious assaults.  In addition, it has long been ComNavOps’ contention that the Navy/Marines (and military, in general) are not conducting realistic, and therefore useful, training.  GAB took the opportunity to expand on the post’s theme and pointed out, item by item, the utter lack of any semblance of realistic training.  His points just scratched the surface of the issue.  There are many other items that should have been included in any worthwhile training but were clearly absent.

Here is the text of his comment.

I can forgive the stand-off distance, but the things that are really missing and telling in the photos:

1) Man-made obstacles (AT ditches, hedge hogs, razor wire, PMN mines, AT mines...).
2) Engineering vehicles to counter any residual mines (the enemy is also sure to have air and artillery delivered scatterable mine systems).
3) Mine sweepers.
4) Smoke - seriously, I would hope that we plan to lay down massive amounts of multi-spectral smoke to blind everything from the naked eye to image intensifiers and infrared optical systems. This is particularly true if you land in daylight…
5) Chaff - the enemy will employ radar to include synthetic and active aperture radars –we need deal with them.
6) Surface screen – seriously, we have no FAC or patrol craft to protect the landing force on the way into the beach, or to suppress immediate threats on the beach with mortars and rockets – really…?
7) And what about that fire support – I favor short neutralization fires, not the 7-day pre-landing bombardments of the Pacific - even so, you need the ability to really hammer at least two linear nautical miles of beach with DPICM (the sub 1% dud rate), HE-frag, and fuel-air/thermobaric munitions.

So, given that all that was lacking, what is this level of training accomplishing?  These Marines are being led to believe that a major assault will be nothing more than a couple of minute transport ride to a clean, harmless, obstacle free beach with guides directing them where to go.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Setting aside the distance issue, the Marines who actually make it ashore alive will encounter smoke, mines, obstacles, craters, confusion, gunfire, aerial attacks, explosions, and death – and that’s if things go well. 

How are we helping these Marines to prepare for combat?  We’re not.

Well, maybe these photos are just from a few exercises that were not intended to be high end, major assault training.  The problem with that thought is that the exercises span several years and represent the highest, most intense training we’ve conducted.  The Bold Alligator series, for example, is the premier amphibious assault exercise that the Marines conduct.

As an aside, has anyone ever thought to intentionally conduct an assault exercise in bad weather?  High sea states?  In the real world, we don’t always get to pick ideal landing locations during periods of calm weather – ask Eisenhower.  We'd learn a lot by being forced to cope.  But, I digress …

It’s not cheap to conduct a major training exercise but it would cost little to seed some dummy mines in the surf and on the beach, use some smoke, fly small UAVs overhead (has anyone figured out how we’ll defend against small spotter or strike UAVs during an assault?), place some obstacles, induce a little forced confusion (intentionally reroute some landing craft to the wrong locations and see if the troops can sort it out), maybe use some pyrotechnics to add a bit of an explosive feel (yes, there’s a tiny element of risk but that’s better than having troops that are totally unprepared – the air forces all accept a degree of risk when they train), and have an enemy force with tanks and artillery greet the landing force.  How about having half the supplies and equipment that land be placed off limits to represent combat losses?

The point is that our training time is precious and there is so much more value we could get out of it for a relatively very small cost.  Why aren’t we?

Let me close with yet another comment from GAB.  Paraphrasing, he noted that we have two options:  we can play at preparing for war or we can prepare for war.  Right now, we’re playing.

Note:  My apologies to GAB if I've embarassed him by spotlighting his comments but this is the kind of intelligence that must be recognized.  Salute!

Bold Alligator 2014

The Marine Corps is returning to the sea, they tell us [why did we leave?  But, I digress …].  OK, let’s take a look at the premier amphibious exercise of the year, the annual Bold Alligator (BA) exercise.  It’s been conducted since 2011 although two of those years the exercise was mostly simulation.

So, with the renewed focus of the Corps on amphibious operations and the Pivot to the Pacific (read China, even though no one will say it) the 2014 exercise would, undoubtedly, have focused on major amphibious assault operations, you would think.  That makes sense.  If we’re going to kick in the Chinese A2/AD zone, or invade Iran or N. Korea, or launch assaults on Russia we need to be prepared to conduct major amphibious operations, right?

As a point of interest, the US contingent of the exercise included 14 USN ships:  6 amphibs, 1 CG, 3 DDG, 1 JHSV, 1 T-AKE, 1 T-AO, and 1 T-ATF.  Not exactly a major amphibious assault force, is it?  -no carriers -no bombardment group -no mine clearing task force.  Conspicuous by their absence is the LCS.  Wasn’t the LCS going to be the kick-the-littoral-door-down force that would secure the littoral region, remove the mine threat, neutralize the submarine threat, and spread democracy?  As best I can determine, the LCS has yet to participate in any of the BA exercises.  That’s odd considering that this is exactly the mission the LCS was designed for.

Anyway, as best I can piece together from numerous sources, the 2014 BA is a series of small, crisis response exercises.  Here are some of the pieces of the exercise.

• provide security for humanitarian assistance (HA) operations
• exercise a riverine team providing security for the HA ops
• raid on a terrorist camp
• embassy protection
• aerial assault
• Company size, unopposed landing
• JHSV loaded 16 Humvees

So, what are we practicing? A bunch of low end, small events. Heck it's based on a humanitarian assistance mission! It's not an exercise to practice getting divisions ashore and demolishing an enemy - it's a scripted series of crisis response, mobility exercises, from what I've read. We're wasting a premier event on peacetime and low end tasks. That's not what the Chinese are practicing!

Here’s an interesting statement from one of the articles.

"'Coming into this event, there was a substantial amount of repair, cleaning and preservation work done to get the ship ready,' said Bossert [Capt. David Bossert, commanding officer of Kearsarge, LHD-3]. 'There was an untold amount of work done by Sailors and Marines assigned to USS Kearsarge, and they have done a phenomenal job.'" (1)

The ship had to undergo extraordinary basic maintenance to be ready for this exercise???!  That says quite a bit about our level of readiness, doesn’t it?

One of the pieces of the exercise involved a Marine battalion providing rapid response embassy protection and security from protesters.  Consider this statement.

“Our biggest challenge was getting out of the combat mindset,” Rosales[Sgt. Richard Rosales, a squad leader with Company F, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines] said. “The Marines are new to embassy guarding, so we met up with the [personnel] at the embassy to learn about daily operations, and how they would normally utilize the Marines [at the embassy].” (2)

Wow!  The Chinese are gearing up for high end combat and we're working hard to get out of the combat mindset. 

Another piece involved having a Marine recon unit land and provide intel for a Company landing team to come ashore in an unopposed landing for the purpose of supporting the embassy protection mission.

We have the opportunity to conduct a major exercise and we opt to spend it on a minor, Company size UNOPPOSED landing whose purpose is to support an embassy security operation.  Way to maximize training opportunities!

This ties back to recent comments about the difference between the Chinese military preparations and our own.  As I’ve said, and as I’ll repeat,

The Chinese are preparing for war.  We are not.

What happens if we have to conduct a major amphibious operation tomorrow?  Are we prepared?  Not from this exercise, we aren’t!

Here’s the thing – if we want to be able to conduct a major, multi-division offensive spearheaded and enabled by an amphibious assault then we have to practice it.  We have to assemble a major task force and practice the operation.  If, on the other hand, we’re concluding that we aren’t going to ever need an amphibious assault on such a scale then why do we have 30 some major amphibious ships and an entire Marine Corps?  If all we’re going to do is embassy evacuations and humanitarian assistance ops and the like, we can make do with significantly fewer amphibious ships (they can be commercial vessels if we aren’t going to conduct opposed landings) and a much smaller Corps.  In fact, if we aren’t going to do amphibious assaults one can’t help but wonder why we even need the Marines.  The Army has Ranger and Airborne units that can do the security and evacuation and small scale raids and probably do them better.

We need to either get serious about amphibious operations or admit that we’re out of the business and turn the resources over to the Army and Air Force.  Bold Alligator 2014 was an embarrassment.  The Chinese have to be laughing about our military priorities.

(1) http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=84390

(2)http://www.marines.mil/News/NewsDisplay/tabid/3258/Article/554132/answering-crisis-call-marines-respond-during-bold-alligator-2014.aspx