Background
On March 23, 2020, the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) announced a major force design initiative planned to occur over the next 10 years referred to as “Force Design 2030.” As part of this initiative, the Marine Corps intends to redesign forces to place a stronger emphasis on naval expeditionary warfare and to better align with the National Defense Strategy, in particular, the strategy’s focus on strategic competition with China and Russia. As part of this redesign, the Marines plan to establish at least three Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) organized, trained, and equipped to accomplish a number of missions within contested maritime spaces.
MLR Missions According to the Marines, the MLR is to be capable of the following missions:
• Conduct Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), a form of expeditionary warfare involving the employment of naval expeditionary forces with low electronic and physical signatures, which are relatively easy to maintain/sustain. These forces are to be arrayed in a series of austere, temporary locations ashore within a contested or potentially contested maritime area to conduct sea denial, support, sea control, and fleet sustainment operations.
• Conduct strike operations with a variety of systems.
• Coordinate air and missile defense operations.
• Support maritime domain awareness.
• Support naval surface warfare operations.
• Support information operations.
The MLR’s Operational Environment
The Commandant of the Marine Corps’ May 2022 Force Design 2030 Annual Update states:
The security environment is characterized by proliferation of sophisticated sensors and precision weapons coupled with growing strategic competition. Potential adversaries employ systems and tactics to hold the fleet and joint force at arm’s length, allowing them to employ a strategy that uses contested areas as a shield behind which they can apply a range of coercive measures against our allies and partners. Operating in this environment, MLRs are envisioned to serve as what the Marines call a “Stand-In Force (SIF),” primarily to “help the fleet and joint force win the reconnaissance and counter reconnaissance battle within a contested area at the leading edge of a maritime defense in-depth.”
MLR Employment
According to a May 25, 2022 Marine Corps Association article “Missions, MAGTFs, Force Design & Change,” by Colonel Michael R. Kennedy, USMC (Retired), MLRs are intended to Deploy to islands, coastlines, and observation posts along chokepoints where their networked sensors and weapons can surveil the air and surface (and, potentially subsurface) waterways. The timing of their insertion is implied to be in the “competition” phase before hostilities start. The duration of their stay is less clear, and potentially challenging as resupply over long distances … will be challenging.… Host nation support (if it exists) will be critical as will prepositioned supplies and even “foraging. The MLR’s purpose will be to observe and prevent any “grey zone” activities that lead to fait accompli actions. In some cases, it is presumed that they may be the “trigger” that shifts the status from competition to conflict if any premature hostile acts are directed towards their positions.
Proposed MLR Organizational Structure
Marine Corps leadership has stated it requires further analysis and experimentation to refine MLR organizational structure. As currently envisioned, the MLR is planned to consist of approximately 1,800 to 2,000 Sailors and Marines and composed of four elements:
• A Command Element.
• A Littoral Combat Team consisting of an infantry battalion and an anti-ship missile battery. The Littoral Combat Team is to provide the basis for multiple platoon reinforced-sized expeditionary advanced base sites capable of conducting a variety of missions.
• A Littoral Anti-Air Battalion designed to conduct air defense, air surveillance and early warning, air control, and forward rearming and refueling operations.
• A Combat Logistics Battalion designed to resupply expeditionary advanced base sites, manage cache sites, and connect with higher-level logistics providers. The Combat Logistics Battalion is also to provide limited purchasing authority, medical support, ammunition and fuel distribution, and field maintenance.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12200/5
Comment: This is part of a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR). The report does a good job of describing the what and why of the MLR. It goes on to describe some of the main items of equipment being developed for this new Marine unit.
I’ve been hearing about this for a few years. The dropping of the Marine tank battalions was a well covered aspect of this reorientation of the Marine Corps from trying to be a mini-US Army to returning to its Naval roots. A recent Honolulu Star-Advertiser article on the 3rd Littoral Regiment, based in Kaneohe, rekindled my interest in where the MLR concept stands today.
It’s a realization that any conflict with China will be a naval war dominated by missiles and now drones. It’s a callback to the defense of Wake Island in WWII where the Marine shore batteries managed to sink a Japanese destroyer. The MLR appears to be largely a reconnaissance and target acquisition force, but it also has a potent anti-ship weapon in the NMESIS (Navy-Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System). It reminds me of Ukraine’s Neptune coastal defense missile system.
Of course the Marine Corps is not the only service reorganizing and reorienting towards a conflict in the Pacific. The Army’s 1st Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), based in Joint Base Lewis-McChord is also oriented towards the Pacific as is the 3rd MDTF at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. The 25th Infantry Division is also now organized and oriented towards littoral operations. The Army is even acquiring a new fleet of medium and heavy landing craft, not to be confused with the Marine Corps’ new Navy Medium Landing Ship, something smaller than the old LSTs and much smaller and cheaper than the current LHAs and LHDs.
It will be interesting, or perhaps frightening is a more descriptive term, to watch the race between China and the US in reorganizing and building towards forces prepared to square off in the Pacific.
TTG
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/R46374.pdf (Navy Medium Landing Ship)
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-littoral-regiment-squad-size-fire-teams
The small end of the spyglass…
Document https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/R46374.pdf
(The whole document is interesting.)
The congressional recommendations are curious.
“The committee recommends a provision that would prohibit the Secretary of the Navy from awarding a contract for the Landing Ship Medium program, including construction of the lead ship, until basic and functional design are certified to be complete.
Acting otherwise, or in haste, could double or triple the amount…
It goes on to say: “Recent examples of shipbuilding programs with a similar acquisition strategy have met with significant cost and schedule challenges, putting the contractor and the program at risk, include the Constellation-class frigate[…]”.
The Constellation-class is based on the excellent design of the Franco-Italian FREMM frigates. Construction of the new FREMM modified Constellation-class frigate began while the plans were still being finalised. Each service (Submarine Warfare and AD) added new requirements during manufacture.
The Navy Lockout site -formerly Save the Royal Navy- devoted a scathing article to the engineering and cost problems of the first frigate of this class.
The perfection of a one-humped dromedary is a two-humped camel.
d74,
The US ship building and ship acquisition process has been a nightmare for decades.
It’s not a flaw in the system, it is a desired feature.
It is designed to ensure massive cost overruns while ensuring that the desired number is never built.
That’s a two-fer for the MIC, because they (a) make out like bandits while (b) never having to expand production capabilities to anything like the original tender.
What could be a more perfect outcome for a profit-based business model?
Lapsus calami calamity.
My apologies to Navy Lookout site, https://navylookout.com/
Listened to a podcast more than a year ago on Heritage that detailed these ideas, all of which have been in the works for years. The presenter honestly stated that the new USMC concept is built around the USMC needing to be a relevant combat arm or go out of existence. Maybe through intense efforts they can keep marine infantry in the budget, but sadly for the USMC, Delta force etc. have displaced them as the US President’s ‘go-to’ guys to do rough stuff. Dinosaurs went extinct, and they were pretty tough hombres according to the fossil record. Marines too, maybe.
There was chatter about getting rid of the USMC decades ago. As an old Marine myself we scoffed at it because everyone knows where old military equipment goes to die; USMC. It is a small fighting force designed to work with the junk and see what you can squeeze out of it. You can actually get quite a lot with the right people tinkering with it. USMC ain’t going nowhere for that reason.
The USMC is twice the size of the British Army. And equally struggling to justify its relevance to American policy.
drifter,
The Marine Corps has been relevant to American policy since November 10, 1775. It’s just good to see it get back to its Naval roots.
Well, maybe. In which case Congress should tell the Army not to encroach on the Marine’s turf.
Either the Marines are responsible for littoral warfare, or the Army equips itself to do littoral warfare.
But why should both spend $billions duplicating that capability.
Yeah, Right,
If war comes in the Pacific, both the Army and Marine Corps will be fighting littoral warfare, just as they both did in WWII.
Then why not just abolish the Marines and expand the Army by a commensurate amount?
Or reduce the Army and expand the Marines by the commensurate amount?
Why duplicate the role but not standardise the equipment.
Naval aviation I can understand: the Navy has the carriers so they should operate the aircraft.
But what you are lauding is the equivalent of the US Army operating aircraft carriers, or th USAF putting together an armoured division.
TTG,
All fine and well until the new woke, feminized, overweight and transvestite – and always lumbering – US Army can’t accomplish the mission. Then the Marines will be back in non-littoral combat zones picking up the slack and getting it done, with less than the usual less.
So some power point warriors renamed the MEU/MAU and truncated the essentials of the TO&E, while adding some dubious high tech crap that won’t do diddly in a real war before it breaks. Ok. Oorah? Yawn.
YR,
Marines are naval infantry. They belong to the Navy. They are under the Dept of the Navy, Sec Nav, etc . whereas soldiers are not under the Navy. So getting rid of Marines and replacing them with soldiers on ships would involve having two different organizations (Navy + Army) in charge of the same day to day operations. That would represent a problem. Remember, Marines are out on floats – out with the fleet – every day. Marines are fully integrated into just about everything the Navy does. So the army would be sticking it’s nose into Navy business daily and down into minutia. It would be a mess.
There are other issues, some cultural, but the command structure issue would be an obvious inefficiency at best.
The way it stands currently the Marine Littoral Regiments (MLR), especially small independently deployed detachments, are going to be starved of target acquisition data for their weapons. Yes, I see they’ll get a few MQ-9 Reapers from the Air Force, which is probably glad to get rid of them due to the high loss rate. And I doubt they’ll get enough G/ATOR radars to go around. There will be a high demand on Naval/AF surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets throughout the theater. So for both early warning and targeting I would hope those small deployed MLR detachments will get lots of UAVs. Not just the FPV versions, but they also should get longer range ones. By the way, those NMESIS cruise missiles cost $2 million each, so in addition to surveillance & recon UAVs add lots of inexpensive kamikaze one-way-attack drones. Once the shooting starts they’ll probably be starved of logistics also as there are already budget fight regarding the new Medium Landing Ships.
Interesting article from the Marine Gazette about a missing link in the MLRs: https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/the-mlrs-missing-link/
The Wake Island Marines were also starved of assets. They were sent there without their radars. They had only one fire control director for their twelve 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and many were missing gunsights. Their 5-inch guns were hand me downs that had been removed from an old battleship. Their resupply ships never got through. Even so, they and four Marine F-4s though were able to sink two IJA destroyers and one submarine that were lost with all hands, damaged a cruiser, destroyed two patrol boats, destroyed 30 plus aircraft and inflicted more than six hundred casualties on the landing force.
If and when the sh!t hits the fan then these new MLRs will be prime targets for the PLA Navy and Air Force. So in my opinion they’ll be a tripwire. The WW2 version of those defense battalions similar to the detachment on Wake were soon either disbanded and fed into infantry units or were downsized to focus solely on AAA and drop the antiship role.
the north koreans are on the move and i fear a third war is on the cards.those units might be needed.
leith,
The Marines have always been big on air-ground integration. Their VTOL F-35s may be in a better position to provide target acquisition for the MLRs. It depends on just how integrated that sensor integration really is, what littoral airfields those F-35s can operate from and how good the Marines are at conducting the FARRP mission. That’s listed as a mission of the MLR anti-air battalion. That would be my answer to the real problems noted in that terrific Marine Gazette article.
Your idea of those MLRs being tripwire forces may be right. I think they’ll perform a similar missions as scout platoons for battalions and armored cavalry regiments for corps.
TTG –
I was thinking more of the “platoon reinforced-sized expeditionary advanced base sites” you mentioned above. I wonder if they could accommodate Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARPs)? Four decades ago the Corps used to routinely train using FARPs for both their VTOL Harriers and rotary wing birds. But as I recall the FARP teams and equipment back then were larger than what the original planners had hoped for. I have no clue of current status. How big are Army FARRPs?
And where will these “platoon reinforced-sized expeditionary advanced base sites” be deployed? How remote would they be from their parent unit? Would the Okinawan MLR potentially send them to islands in the Tsushima Strait or to the far SW end of the Ryukyu islands chain close to Taiwan? Would the Guam based MLR maybe send them to the Batanes islands south of Taiwan and north of Luzon? Plus far south of the Philippines there are several choke points in and around Indonesia, Malaya & Borneo where they could conceivably be sent?
https://mms.magloft.com/TcBGCvlKDI688jMp/1aMa5XSGdyQGN7ES
leith,
I ran a FARRP by myself with five locals and two old UAZ vans, but that was just for “little birds.” We called them forward area rearming and refueling points. I guess they’re both right.Not sure how austere the Marines could go for their F-35s. They could also service longer range drones like the Jouav CW-30E. Not sure we have anything like that.
I could see some of those platoon-sized sites being among the many South China Sea islands. They’d be like the WWII coast watchers. I’m sure they could be situated as you laid out. I’ve never really looked at the Pacific strategy.
Leith – on the article. That networking with external command centres for identifying and selecting targets looks very advanced and sophisticated, but what happens if too many nodes get knocked out?
They’d do well to have autonomous capabilities as well, as back-up.
English –
Yes, every node should have an autonomous capability.
In regards to your question, I left the service over 40 years ago, so I’m not the right person to ask about the survivability of 21st century military networks. However, my limited understanding of Link-16 is that it has some built in resilience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_16
While this post concentrates on land warfare,
there was an interesting subsurface development in 2021:
“Navy Seawolf-Class Sub Crashed Into Underwater Mountain Close to China”
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navy-seawolf-class-sub-crashed-underwater-mountain-close-china-210772
“While the official account cites an accident,
there’s speculation that advanced Chinese anti-submarine technologies
may have played a role.
-These include 6G terahertz tracking with underwater drones,
laser detection systems,
and satellite-based synthetic aperture radar linked to hypersonic torpedoes.
…
[T]he Connecticut was prowling the depths of [the relatively shallow South China Sea],
operating very near to the advanced Chinese naval submarine base on Hainan Island.
…
China has turned to truly sophisticated technologies and techniques for hunting American submarines.
1. 6G Terahertz Tracking Plus Advanced Underwater Drones…
2. Using Lasers to Track US Submarines…
3. Synthetic Aperture Radar and Their Hypersonic Torpedo
China has spent the last several years deploying multiple of its Yaogan electronic-reconnaissance satellites into Earth orbit.
These satellites represent a major step forward for China’s anti-submarine-warfare capabilities.
They employ what is known as a Synthetic Aperture Radar system.
The Yaogan system is most akin to the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Surveillance System,
which is used to intercept radio signals from the ground and then use those signals to triangulate the locations of warships at sea.
The Chinese are so protective of the Yaogan satellite constellation that they have deployed a co-orbital “bodyguard” satellite to better defend it from any potential U.S. anti-satellite weapon attack. …”
Keith Harbaugh –
I’m fascinated by the term “6G terahertz tracking with underwater drones” in that National Interest article.
High frequencies do not propagate in the ocean’s salty water. As far as I know the only freqs that do are VLF in shallow water and ELF for deeper depths. So I’m surmising there is some data missing in the article.
Fred was a submariner, so perhaps he knows?
leith,
Acording to Gabriel Honrada (Asia Times article), the “6G terahertz tracking” is used in Chinese tech to detect *surface* vibration caused by low frequency sound from the submarines.
Tony, I googled your reference.
Apparently this is what you were referencing:
“China’s terahertz tech heralds the future of underwater war”
https://asiatimes.com/2023/09/chinas-terahertz-tech-heralds-the-future-of-underwater-war/
“The device identified tiny surface vibrations, reportedly as tiny as 10 nanometers, produced by a low-frequency sound source in the open sea.
These waves can help find submarines and gather critical intelligence, such as noise signatures that can be analyzed to identify a submarine’s model.”
leith,
IIRC, that sensor is on UAV in the air. UUV (underwater drones) then use the location to attack the sub. Brandon J. Weichert probably mispoke.
TonyL/Keith H –
Thanks. I knew something was fishy with Weichert’s article.
But in any case that wake detection is technology is amazing. A ten nanometer ripple is 0.0000003937 of an inch – a thousand times thinner than a human hair. How do they do that considering all the other surface effects of wind, current, sea floor topography, etc? Doubtful they could do that in all WMO Sea States and all depths. If the sensor does work in those conditions using UAVs it won’t be long before they put it on satellites.
leith,
Agreed. It’s still an experimental technology, probably working in a perfect test condition only. And if they can correlate the vibration with some specific low frequency signatures, that would be amazing.
For some further information on Chinese claims regarding 6G, see
“Chinese scientists look to 6G to hunt submarines …
Defence researchers say sensors can identify
extremely small surface vibrations produced by a low-frequency sound source in the open sea”
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3232682/chinese-scientists-look-6g-hunt-submarines-testing-device-small-enough-fit-drone
“The terahertz device identified extremely small surface vibrations produced by a low-frequency sound source in the open sea, scientists involved in the experiment said.
These ripples were as tiny as 10 nanometres tall, well below the detection range of existing technology.”
leith,
Lasers! Sharks with frickin lasers! (Fang Fang did the Brits first.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INFavIUmhcE
Yaogan system – all 4 satellites. Still have to communicate with the firing platform. And see not only through water but clouds too. Or, to quote the Duke’s sidekick: “And another whale lost his blubber” hypersonically, too. No sushi for you, sorry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnaf9Nneb7A
As I mentioned to some flag rank or another long ago, when war comes what ‘sound shorts’ are the Soviets going to remove from their ships so the sound signature on file doesn’t match what is heard by the newest super-duper sonar? That didn’t go over too well.
I knew we could count on you Commodore.