What good is sea power for the land power projection of the U.S.?

Not much as abused by McSelfish (like cheap fast food not filling) McBureaucrats trying to expand a service McEgo/budget share to conveniently only carry "light" forces only able to do low-risk media-friendly evacuations when Light forces can be delivered faster and of higher U.S. Army quality by AIR. In the future AFVs will be air-transportable to include giant seaplanes making the tedious ship deployment described a thing of the past. Aircraft deployment flies over seamines, just 1,000 "low-tech seamines blocked 18,000 marines/sailors and 22 ships from landing in Desert Storm in 1991. Today's "high-tech" seamines are even more sophisticated and deadly yet USN mineclearing capability has actually gotten WORSE since the Gulf War!

The Pentagon says they will send 2,200 marines ashore in Kosovo, how many really go ashore in a MEU-SOC and how many are actual trigger pullers?

Read below and weep.

One battalion of less than 600 shooters.

How many tanks?

4.

This pathetically tiny force would be the ideal thing to beat up and give the Americans a "bloody nose". This is straight from a MEU-SOC's web page.

http://www.wna-linknet.com/26Meu/homepage/organ.htm

http://www.wna-linknet.com/26Meu/homepage/blt.htm

MEU-SOC TOE
__________________________________________________
TOTAL: 2200

"Command" Element:
225 marines and Sailors

That leaves us 1,975.

Aviation Combat Element:
450 marines and Sailors

That reduces us to: 1,525

Combat Service Support Element:
250 marines and Sailors

That reduces us to: 1,274

Ground Combat Element:
1250 marines and Sailors (notice their numbers don't add up!)

What's there?

The Ground Combat Element for a MEU is Battalion Landing Team (BLT). Built around an infantry battalion, the BLT has attachments that include a light armored reconnaissance vehicle platoon, an artillery battery, an amphibious assault vehicle platoon, a tank platoon, a combat engineer platoon and a reconnaisance platoon. The BLT will have approximately 1150 marines and 100-124 Sailors.

Composition

Infantry Battalion -- Made up of three line companies, a weapons company and one headquarters and service company.

Artillery Battery -- The battery contains 6 M198 155mm towed Howitzers.
Light Armored Vehicle Company (-) -- A Company (-) consists of 13 14-ton LAV deathtrap armored cars.
Assault Amphibian Vehicle Platoon -- The AAV platoon contains 15 46-ton Assault Amphibian Vehicles (AAV-7s)

Note: they forgot the tank platoon which has 4 M1A1 tanks or that a Light Armored Vehicle Platoon is not a LAV Company. Giving them the benefit of a doubt, we will include BOTH a tank platoon and a LAV company, even though its one or the other, not both.

BOTTOM LINE WHEN YOU CUT OUT THE HEADQUARTERS AND SUPPORT STAFFS, MAINTAINERS ETC:

Here is a rough estimate of the actual "Trigger pullers"

3 x INFANTRY COMPANIES (unarmored, foot-slogging 1-4 mph at best)
1 x WEAPONS COMPANY. (same plus limited units of fire) -----------------------------------------------------------------

400 men

4 heavy defensive tanks (Burns 7 gallons of fuel for every mile driven, vulnerable when refueled)
13 wheeled armored cars (anything above an AKM penetrates LAV)
15 tracked personnel carriers (AAV-7 is huge target standing 20 feet high, with 25 men packed inside)
6 towed artillery pieces (vulnerable to counter-battery fire, close in attack)
--------------------------------------------------------------
16 tankers, 39 wheeled crewmen, 45 amphibian crewmen, 48 cannon-cockers
____________________________________________
148 men

TOTAL: 400-500 men who actually are on the ground with weapons in their hand to "peacekeep", 150 are inside vehicles.

An ideal target for mortar, sniper and RPG attacks.

Compare this with what a LHD Wasp class amphib ship COULD carry if self-serving Mcbureaucrats were not in charge:

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/#Aircraft Carriers and Amphibious Ships

Click on LHD Wasp class.

"The ship's vehicle storage area typically accommodates five M-1 tanks, 25 Light Amphibious Vehicles (L.A.V.), eight Howitzer M-198 guns, 68 military trucks (HMMVVVs), 10 logistics vehicles (Dragon Wagons), 12 five-ton trucks, two water trailers, a fuel service truck, four rough terrain forklifts and two generator trailers. These vehicles can be loaded aboard landing craft, and the majority can be rigged for transportation to the beach by helicopter."

That's actually 4 x M1 tanks and 6 x howitzers. Note how many BS soft-skin vehicles being carried ashore:

91! Easy "road-kill" for landmines, AKMs, RPGs.

This is what happens when you have a bureaucracy in love with perpetuating itself in charge and not warriors.

Cut out the Mc BS bragging and you have a token presence asking for a disaster! 172,000 marines on full time payroll and THIS is all we get.

Let's hope we do not get another Beirut. look what happened to the Brits when they went ashore "light".

"2 Para came within an ace of failure as, nearing exhaustion, outnumbered, low on ammunition, and lacking adequate fire support, they fought over open ground, and in daylight, against prepared positions.... was the battle necessary at all? Why did London overrule the brigade commander's reluctance to attack Goose Green? Did Colonel 'H' Jones's solo charge on Darwin ridge--which won him a posthumous VC--decide the issue? Goose Green was the first land battle of the war. It was also the longest, the hardest-fought, the most controversial, the most important to win, and the only one that hung in the balance for several hours.."

In response to the bitter fighting that resulted from the slow ship deployment of British troops to the South Atlantic gave the Argentines time to reinforce, dig-in and lay mines, the Ministry of Defense created the 5^th Airborne Brigade and now the even bigger, 16^th Air Assault Brigade that flies to a world hot spot like the Falklands within hours. In 1956, politically, Port Said had to be taken in hours: naval forces couldn't get there, so British/French Paratroops jumped in. Paratroops can also deter aggression like the British Airborne as a full sized Division did to stop Iraq invading Kuwait in 1961.

"Britain's Airborne rapid development force, 5th Airborne Brigade was setup in its present form after the Falklands War to deal with Out of Area Operations (O.A.O.). Which could be rapid reinforce of dependent territories; the evacuation of United Kingdom nationals from overseas trouble spots; assistance to friendly governments; international peace keeping operations and rapid response to emergencies."

CPT William S. Riggs in his article, "Global Cavalry" in the March-April 1998 U.S. Army Armor magazine writes:

"The marine meu (light infantry battalion-sized unit) possesses the ability to seize limited objectives from the sea as long as the objective is relatively near an ocean. If objectives are in land-locked countries, or located far from the sea, the marines are severely limited. In addition, with the procurement of advanced missile technology by many nations, the employment of marine forces places considerable risk on the ships bringing them ashore.

Consider the problems and losses faced by the British in the Falklands against Argentine defenses. The marine corps is currently working on equipment and doctrine for extended projection operations from ships over the horizon..However, in the end, the ability to project CREDIBLE ground combat power into a theater is NOT a marine corps function.

The use of pre-positioned ships depends on a multitude of factors, ranging from having a secure port to disembark vehicles to airheads that will support troop transports flying in Soldiers to link-up with their equipment. All of this assumes that the enemy has not sunk the pre-positioned ships prior to their arrival at a port facility. Therefore, the use of heavy forces in support of power projection operations is limited to their ability to be shipped and is therefore, realistically, not a good option if time is a factor."

If the Navy fails to control brown waters some suicide bomber in a fast boat or light airplane rams a Navy LHA/LHD full of marines we lose 3,000+ men. These Amphibious not-Ready-for-war-Group (ARG) "penny packets" venture out without ASW escort, so "Sanji Praen" in his stealthy KILO-class Russian diesel-electric submarine, "U-bot 235" gets his capital ship. If "Achmed" lays mines in the surf zone, and digs in to defend the beaches whatever landing craft used get obliterrated, especially when the armored reaction force overwhelms them at the high water mark--wheeled LAVs with popguns versus heavier, better armed, tracked BMP-3s Infantry Fighting Vehicles and T-72s Main Battle Tanks....hmm who wins that one? At least the Airborne has an Immediate Ready Company (IRC) to fly into 3,000 foot assault zones with M2A2 Bradley IFVs/M1A2 Abrams MBTs on call. Not ideal, but better than waterlanding the LAV "flaming coffins".

In WWII, we needed more carriers than building full-sized Midway types hence "jeep" escort carriers from cargo ships. Today its billion-dollar amphib ships with flooding well decks and full Navy crews when automated Pre-positioned Roll on/Roll-off fast APS-3 sealift ship into "jeep carriers" are needed. 2 Pre-Po RO/RO ships made into Command & Control ships for the 16-ship U.S. Army APA squadron can deliver more than an entire Heavy Armored Brigade's worth of combat power ashore...not light crap. 2 Pre-Po Jeep carriers with full length flight decks and bulk POL/armaments for either U.S. Army helicopters that come aboard and/or the ground AFVs of the other APA ships for their drivers flying in from CONUS to meet up and drive their their vehicles ashore by LACV-30s and lighters organic to the APA or their own M113A3 Gavins with ocean-swim kits. The rest of the Heavy Brigade, jump qualified could parachute or STOL airland into an Airhead seized by a Regional Airborne Task Force or the 82^nd Airborne division's Paratroopers. Thus, CPT Rigg's concerns about the need for either a port or an airfield that an enemy anti-access strategy could deny us are solved.

McWeakness: the U.S. Army/AF wins at rapid deployment:

Zaire. March 1996.

The State Dept recalled all U.S. Citizens to the U.S. Embassy for possible evacuation. The mc, of course considering the NEO mission only for them, sent 26th MEU steaming to the region. Things were too hot- the NCA directed SETAF to take care of things. Immediately 1/508th ABCT, and the 21st Special Operations Squadron deployed to Congo, and Gabon. They were ready at the border to launch the NEO mission; Operation Guardian Retrieval with no notice. While they waited for the mcSlackers, the combined Paratrooper/MH-53J Pavelow III helicopter team rehearsed the mission.

The lightning fast mc, didn't arrive until the middle of April. SETAF then handed the mission over to 26th MEU. Naturally on the 26th MEU homepage, there is no mention of the troopers that arrived weeks before them, at a closer proximal staging area, with better trained troopers, and better rotary assets.

Then the next month, U.S. Army SF and the 21st SOS evacuated 2,000 Americans from Liberia for Operation Assured Response.

The point being the U.S. Army/Air Force Airborne team--be it the 82d Airborne Division "All Americans" from CONUS or a regional Airborne Combat Task Force like in the Pacific, the 1/501st "Geronimos" or the previously mentioned European SETAF, the 1/508th "Red Devils"----can rapidly deploy themselves and their helicopters inside USAF transport jets to the scene faster and do the job immediately--be it rescues, NEOs or combat missions than the slow moving mc.

The C-17 Globemaster III can also land almost anywhere 1,400 feet long and clear (roads, clearings etc) after flying inter-continental distances via in-flight refueling capabilities. The Paratroopers and their vehicles can also parachute in to ANY small clearing.

If Airborne forces in Britain and the U.S. can evacuate their country's citizens, better and faster than sea-based forces, why keep the usmc if only sized and equipped to do minor raids/evacuations?

General Gavin is right. The time of costly ships has passed, especially if embarked forces are not significant size or with numerous armored vehicles and kept NEAR troubled areas, since light Paratroops and AFVs can fly in faster directly to where needed to achieve decisive MANEUVER that collapses enemies and changes governments. Ships can bring in supplies to sustain the fight in the unlikely event it takes longer than 72 hours, but we should not surrender surprise and the initiative to the enemy by waiting for supply ships just so we can execute Montgomery-style set-piece attritional battles. The sad truth is a grunt with a rifle in his hand and a ruck on his back is just as logistically isolated with his ships 50+ miles over-the-horizon as the Paratrooper whose 169,000 lbs. supplies by each C-17 jet transports at 500+ mph but farther away, in fact more so:

..The fatally unreliable V-22 cannot carry even a HMMWV truck inside! Water landing craft (LCACs, AAVs) can be exploded by mines or enemy ambush at the beach; slow transport helicopters in broad daylight over the coverless water get shot down like in Vietnam. Then supplies are to travel overland??

As our world shrinks by telecommunications, its simpler to call "long distance" by SATCOM and deliver LARGE AMOUNTS (169,000 lbs per C-17) of supplies DIRECTLY to the Paratroopers in need by AIR drop/STOL airland, just like FedEX, than play around with McMiniscule amounts in the open sands. We must lead the attack from the AIR, go to the ground for lasting leverage and followed by sea-based logistics if needed.

OTH means bring back the Iowa Class battleships!

Hundreds of men dead, missing in action or had to endure years of torture as POWs from the Vietnam war because we had them fly through the densist Air Defenses in history to drop bombs when we could have had Iowa class battleships shell North Vietnam from Over-the-Horizon (OTH) immune to any enemy attempts to stop them. A noted weapons analyst writes:

"When they opened up in Korea, a lot of the Chinese began to surrender because they they thought we were using nuclear weapons. People also think that a 16-in (406mm) round is just twice the size of an 8-inch round. But you have to do it cubed, times length of the round. Therefore, a 16-inch is around 200O lbs, while an 8-inch is 200 lbs, the Navy only has 5-inch 90lbs rounds left.

If you read accounts of World War II, troops feared the battleships most of all. A naval gun shoots a "bullet" faster than the speed of sound, there is no warning. Radar can detect aircraft, and you can see them dropping their load before you take cover. You can hear mortars and howitzers fire in the distance, and even the incoming round provides noise to allow a few seconds to hit the deck.

A battleship can fire nine 2000 lbs at a target and the victims have no warning at all. They can be in the chow line, or filling sandbags, or taking a dump, and then BOOM! In addition, troops can fire back at aircraft and ground pieces, but they can only hide and wait for the battleships to go away.

One Iowa was hit directly by an armored 5-inch round, it caused small dent. In Korea and Vietnam, shore gunners couldn't resist shooting at the big ships, they quickly learned they made a fatal mistake. One Iowa was hit by a 152mm shell off Korea, it broke open one of their hatches, but that was all."

"All of these systems are too expensive to provide heavy fire support, and they all require GPS, which is easily jammed. The ERGM is stupid since its warheard cost $35,000 each and consists of just 19 lbs of "bomblets". The VGAS has not even been developed, and will never work"

Units on amphib SHIPS are supposed to be HEAVY, the U.S. Army flying by aircraft is the LIGHT force. The McHUGE mc, gets us a mere light infantry BN afloat at two spots at any given time!

Former mc officer, Carlton Meyer writes:

"The corps normally maintained 6 of its 24 infantry battalions deployed overseas during the Cold War 1980s, and continues this pattern today. Two battalions are deployed aboard Navy ships, while four are maintained on the small Japanese island of Okinawa.

The corps should slow the infantry battalion rotation cycle so that three (rather than four) battalions are on Okinawa at a given time. This would slow optempo by at least 10 percent, while improving quality of life and the corps' ability to respond to "real" world events. The corps has struggled to send task forces to Haiti, Liberia, Cuba, and Central Africa because units were on traditional deployments to the peaceful island of Okinawa. Maintaining just one fewer infantry battalion on Okinawa would save millions of dollars each year in overseas support costs, TAD pay, and airlift costs. Should tensions in the region rise, the corps can fly a dozen battalions to Okinawa from Hawaii and California within days".

"Okinawans recently voted 10 to 1 for a reduction in American forces. Unless force reductions are forthcoming, the U.S. military could be kicked off the entire island. Old "salts" were convinced that the U.S. Navy would never be forced to leave Subic Bay, but a failure to deal with politics led to an order to leave within two years. The marine corps must reduce its presence on Okinawa if it wants to retain any bases on that island".

A LHD's

"...vehicle storage area typically accommodates five M-1 tanks, 25 Light Amphibious Vehicles (L.A.V.), eight Howitzer M-198 guns, 68 military trucks (HMMVVVs), 10 logistics vehicles (Dragon Wagons), 12 five-ton trucks, two water trailers, a fuel service truck, four rough terrain forklifts and two generator trailers. These vehicles can be loaded aboard landing craft, and the majority can be rigged for transportation to the beach by helicopter."

90+ SOFT SKIN VEHICLES! 25 LAV death traps--and theyre wrong-4 M1 MBTs in a platoon, cannot fly in by helicopter--only noisy, unarmed, unarmored LCAC hovercraft.

See why all they can do is "evacuate"? How convenient. The point of ships is to carry HEAVY stuff yet the McFull-of-excuses-group has loaded our amphib ships with LIGHT crap: what a $multi-billion dollar waste$! Its time to invest a little into the U.S. Army's power projection capabilities and do this thing right for a seamless Airborne-amphibious force projection capability.

In modern war, operations continue around-the-clock, with air-to-air, underway ship refueling its McNonsense to stop let alone seize an "advanced naval base" or beachhead when the object is to defeat the enemy further inland. With austere, forced-entry logistics over-the-shore capability operations are a means to the end of defeating the enemy.

McWeak: pre-positioned ships (MPF)s with more light crap:

30 tanks, 25 LAVs, 30 towed guns, 109 AAVs, 129 HMMWVs! 16,500 Mcland-locked foot-sloggers who can't jump, need runway, planes to link up with MPFs = 249 sorties

U.S. Army (APA) ships carry Heavy Brigades:

123 tanks, 154 IFVs, 100 APCs, 24 SP guns, 9 MLRS, 10 ADA IFVs, 10 Avengers, 40 ARMED HMMWVs, manned by 9,800 men = 101 airlift sorties

Armed Forces Journal, Sep'94

Who has the best "tooth" ratio?

APA Heavy Brigade personnel that are AIRBORNE qualified can jump in to link up without airfields.

MC-130 Combat Talon III air-cushion or float seaplanes can aid in STOL airlanding on land/water to deliver AFV drivers to the Prepo Jeep carriers leading the other APS-3 ships. Drivers need to be fast rope (FRIES) qualified to cross-deck over to the other APA ships in order to man their AFVs and drive them off onto landing craft or swim themselves ashore (Amphigavins).

CH/MH-47D/E/F/G crews trained to ferry drivers to the APS-3 ships and land or hover for them to fast rope onto the APA Prepo ships.

The Flight decks of the PrePo jeep carriers are primarily for Attack-Transport aviation to perform their security missions and to transport SOF/APS-3 STS personnel aboard, to other ships and ashore.

a. Heavy AFV inland war-winning "punch" from 16 APS-3 sealift ships
b. SOF/Attack-transport helicopters carrier-based from PrePo Jeep carriers
c. Logistics for extended fights from PrePo carrier if needed
d. C4I ships for APS-3 sealift squadron
e. LACV-30s attached to APS-3s
f. Amphibious ocean swim kits fitted to M113A3 Gavins to self-swim-ashore
g. Battleship escort for NVGFS and interdiction from sea and cruise missile threats

Only costs: M113A3 ARIS SPA swim kits, the two "Jeep" PrePo carriers made from TAKR-310s and bringing the battleships USS Wisconsin and USS New Jersey back to life using man-slots taken from the mcWelfare corps.

A Far East Asian country becomes an immediate threat to the national security of the U.S. (Threatens to use chem-bios, nukes on its neighbors?)

Having gone throught some force restructure, and new equipment, the U.S. Army deploys rapidly in force, and more importantly in Depth. The Regional ABNTF seizes an airhead by parachute assault, followed by 82^nd Airborne Paratroopers. The 101^st Air Assault siezes a beach via BDE-sized Regimental Combat Team movement by air assault, from a U.S. Navy carrier, Pre-Po C&C carriers. They do this at night because they can, not a mcPathetic company by daylight CH-46 from a McPuny BN sized meu. Two remaining 101^st AA RCT's come in on Army LACV-30 landing craft and M113A3 Amphigavins after being transfered to the PrePo C&C Jeep Carrier by shuttling inside their own helicopters made flyable after ship transit from an Intermediate Staging Base (ISB).

The enemy country heavily reinforces a strategic airfield believing they can defeat lightly equiped 82^nd on DZ. The 82^nd makes short work of armor/light armor on DZ away from the actual airfield (surprise! why jump directly onto an airfield?) with 106RRs and Paragators rapidly out maneuvering enemy armor, M8 AGS's making short work of heavy armor left after leaving the heavy DZs. Meanwhile, the 1/508^th, 1st RGR, 2nd RGR, 3 RGR taking down key smaller airfields and destroying attack aircraft on DZ's, taking down command centers, securing C2 stations, to support the forced-entry by devastating the entire depth of the enemy's forces. The 2nd ACR airlands using the C-17's 1,400 foot STOL capability directly behind 82^nd, rapidly moving into the capitol city to sieze key objectives in concert with 82^nd: the dictator's "Presidential Palace".

1/501^st ABNTF siezes a highland airfield, rest of their of light RCT airlands behind. They rapidly move via armored BV-206S SUSVs mounted with heavy wpns to sieze and hold the only mountain pass in and out of the country. 25th LID airlanding on the airfield next to the beachhead the 101^st siezed with its light infantry/M113A3 Gavin Cavalry organic mix moves into nearby heavily vegetated areas to sieze objs in small towns where opposing units are hiding with sympathetic noncombatants. Fully ashore, the 101^st AA has formed into BN QRF's for to rapidly respond to problems day or NIGHT via air assualt.

101^st, and XVIII Airborne Corps aviation attack assets off shore on the USN CV and Pre-Po C&C carriers wait to respond to any heavy contacts, once again day or NIGHT. One RCT of 82^nd still sittting on the DZ holding and defending the only international airport in the country recieves a RCT from a foward deployed 1st AD via airland of its personnel and marry-up of its heavy vehicles by APA Pre-po ships. These two RCTs and 75^th RGR form a task force to sieze the countries main army base/command center where the enemy command has fled and is holed up.

The OPLAN is executed on short notice the mcNot-there-yet is not left out. The mc puts into motion the forming of a Mclight meb. While the above mentioned is happening: the newly formed Mclight meb and a Mclight meu already at sea are steaming towards the region. When they arrive, the U.S. Army has completed all strategic objectives with minimal loss of life, and equipment. The mil world sits stunned at how the U.S. Army could so rapidly deploy in force and in depth. McWhiners say "the Army already had its logistics in place" ad nauseum; the mcBureaucracy should receive budget share for self-proclaimed "911" type missions. The NCA and the President called the mcSlackers and their "line was busy". The U.S. Army answered the call, went and did the job. To the victors go the spoils.

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