Fort Barrancas is less than an hour's drive from where I live. Been there many times and like that old coastal fort. It's a real piece of history. But when LtCol Jennings used coastal forts as a premise for his bold new idea to empower ground forces to more decisively influence tactics and strategy in maritime environments, he lost my attention, and confidence. How ever would he build, man, supply and protect them west of the International Dateline? And does he think the Navy will get enthused enough to help? Hah! To say nothing of environmental impact studies and foreign NIMBY's picketing the construction sites. No...let's take the money we'll save building coastal forts and use it to buy DDG's, AD's, AE's, AO's and maybe a dozen OHP FFG's.
We have USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206) but that is not enough. How about a fort on either Quemoy or Matsu Island named "Harvey Banard Milk Fortress of Democracy"? We need to stick it to China good and hard.
I'll say what you won't say. Jennings is an idiot. It sounds harsh but he is just so far from the emerging reality. A reality that has no real place for the army (on these issues).
In the decades to come, SpaceX will have reusable rockets that can put vast quantities of 'stuff' into space. Stuff that doesn't have to be expensive 'space' stuff or a million functions crammed into a single package.
We can see everything from space today. Starlink proves that we can launch thousands of imaging satellites of varying types faster than anyone can take them down.
And once we see, we can use the same space technology to deliver hundreds of tons of smart weapons anywhere in 90 minutes or so. Forgetting about treaty issues, we can stuff near space with kinetic and non kinetic weapons and use SpaceX launches to directly deliver pallets of air launched ai weapons. And starting right now, while we are waiting for SpaceX to get it's development done, we could use modified commercial air platforms to drop pallets of weapons from a stand off distance.
There is nothing on the seas that could withstand these kinds of assaults. Even with good defensive weapons, the simple fact is they will be on empty long before the tons of weapons stop being launched. Think about B29s over Japan. Except the bombs are smart and the planes / space platforms are far away.
And all of these should be navy. The role of the navy isn't to drive ships around the sea. The role of the navy is to dominate and control anything on water. The navy is about a role not about equipment. The navy learned this in WW2 when aircraft became the key for domination. It's time to remember that lesson.
And none of this has anything to do with the army. There really is a lot the army should be doing but it isn't on water.
Smart army people should be spending their time understanding this new set of technologies and learning how to use them. Like a drone being more effective and cheaper than a 155mm shell. Jennings is a distraction and that is harmful to all the services.
A tiny comms satellite does not equal a tiny imaging satellite, but I generally like what you are driving at here. Stationary has had and will continue to have very little to no future in warfare. Shoot and scoot will apply to things like get water and scoot, get gas and scoot, sleep and scoot. Eventually i might all be scooting until its time to change the tires.
In this link you will see a picture of a Synthetic Aperture Radar. Not that big and remarkably similar to the physical shape and size of a Starlink satellite. Stackable so a dozen or more could be in a single launch. The ability to launch for $100 to $400 per pound is a monster game changer when coupled with reusable launchers that that can provide launch cycles now in days and hours in the near future.
I used Starlink in Antarctica in December hundreds of miles from the nearest anything. A mere 4,000 satellites and the internet is literally available anywhere. The same number or perhaps a mere 1,000 creates a world where no ship is 'invisible' or hidden in real time. Any Chinese ship or fleet can be tracked and then sunk. If you can't hide and I can put kinetic rods in place overhead in less than 90 minutes then game over for surface ships of any kind.
Again, like the transition to aircraft centric in WW2, the world of the Navy is changing in a fundamental way. Failure to change is terminal and, for the US Navy, there is a 'first mover' advantage that can create a lasting (20 to 40 years) sea supremacy.
Yes, not there yet. But certainly within a 10 to 20 year window as long as the defense establishment understands what is the reality and act accordingly.
As I alluded to, the 'kill chain' has some short term options that are almost immediately available. Full visibility with SAR is only a few billion including launch costs. Starlink like construction / manufacture and launch on Falcon 9's dedicated to these launches. With appropriate computer tech (no new ground, just execution) a full system in place in 5 years is not heavy lifting.
About the same amount of time needed for commercial aircraft and Falcon 9 rockets to be modified to drop pallets of high speed rockets on sea targets (obviously other uses as well).
This gives the ability to respond in size to any sea threat in 90 minutes to a few hours. Pretty sobering if you are on the receiving end.
Not quite there but really close and relatively inexpensive. It just needs to be a priority.
In a total war situation with a peer like the PRC, wouldn't you have to assume that anything in orbit around Earth will be floating debris within the first six months?
Yes. But this is not a war fighting deterrent. And anything is not everything.
The current model is that 30 or so GPS satellites or 50 SAR satellites are a defensible system. Hugely expensive satellites. And a couple of hundred antisats leave us blind and lost.
The new SpaceX model is a real change. Thousands of relatively inexpensive satellites performing just a few key functions launched by reusable rockets that bring launch cost down by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. Combined with massive surface stocks of replacements along with a rapid launch cadence, the PRC and every other country runs out of antisats long before the USA runs out of platforms.
Taking down thousands of satellites is really hard. And takes awhile. And I'm assuming that countries trying to shoot down hundreds or thousands of US satellites are going to get strong kinetic and electronic feedback from the USA. The PRC won't have any satellites or launch facilities pretty quick. Right now they don't have 5,000 internet satellites. They have just a few. In 5 years we could have 5,000 each of GPS, SAR and other types. The PRC hasn't yet developed a Falcon 9 equivalent let alone a Starship. The cost of launch of 5,000 satellites using single use rockets and launch cadences measured in weeks or months is all but impossible and very close to financially impossible.
Right now, the USA has (because of SpaceX) an incredible first mover advantage. It would allow for US domination of space and sea. But first mover advantage stays only when it is continued to be pushed forward as fast as possible.
I know what can be done. It's clear. I fear what won't be done because of organizational competitiveness, inertia, and stupidity. SpaceX is trying as hard as it can to give the US a huge advantage via Starship development and the US government response isn't to help but rather to bring in the Fish & Wildlife Service to slow things down. Imagine the Manhattan Project under todays rules and conditions. SpaceX should be considered a Manhattan Project type event.
I can write. The other officers who can...I think I could count them on the fingers of both hands, and not have to take off my shoes and socks or unzip my fly.
We used to have a pretty good course, CAS3, that, more or less inadvertently, cut down on the buzzword bingo. Now? Hopeless.
As for this idea, no; let the Corps, infected by that idiot Berger, take over the fortress mission. Or dump it, if they can, in time. The Army needs to remain the Army, designed and trained to close with and destroy the enemy by means of fire and maneuver or repel his assault by means of fire, close combat, and counterattack. Everything else is a distraction and a waste.
Addendum: A course of action I commend to people, whenever faced with a new buzzword or acronym pretend you have no idea what it means and insist that the user of the buzzword or acronym explain what it means and how it is different from previous English usage. Then, say, "Oh, so it's really just this X we've been using for 200 years?" Drives them batshit.
Berger really is a dumbass, isn't he? He's done more damage to them USMC than the Japanese and the North Koreans combined - I suppose that's some sort of accomplishment in a Guinness Book way but not very good for the country.
Other than that, the article was a monumental bowl of word salad, as Justice Learned Hand said of the tax code, "Like trying to watch ants scurry around on a sheet of paper."
Berger really deserves the honor of having Dunning-Kruger renamed Dunning-Kruger-Berger.
Something about the Marines gives them a fascination with nonsense intellectualism...oh, and weird equipment, too. Decision cycle theory took them over for a decade or so but now, under the continuous assault of common sense, it's reduced to a mere footnote in their Warfighting manual. This crap will pass too, but the time lost in both trying to make it work and then changing back to the real world will never be regained.
Mind, the Army can be just as stupid. Think here: Pentomic and Son-of-Pentomic, aka the idiocyfest that is UEx and UEy.
The last weird equipment I recall was the Ontos, and they were all destroyed in the RVN. By and large our gear was okay, nothing spectacular because most was leftover from the Sisters.
On the whole, the Corps was greatly advantaged in allowing our officers room for creativity. Francis X Hammes was let loose to develop the 4th Generation Warfare concept. I doubt the other services would have accepted that range of intellectual freedom. Berger's horse shit is as logically thin as damp toilet tissue, and begs comparison to strategic doctrine placing antebellum Marines on Wake. They lacked the firepower to defeat Japanese attack, and - quelle horreur! - the USN couldn't either reinforce or evacuate. Check out the tune frame where DC repeatedly intones to just hold out, when everybody in the War Department knew it wasn't going to happen.
But let's return to those "golden days of yesteryear," by all means. It's tiring to be the big dog on the porch nobody wants to provoke.
Nothing like having to reestablish our pecking order status every six months.
The Howtar (4.2" mortar mounted on a 75mm pack how carriage) which, since they bought a bunch of French Thompson-Brandt 120 LRs (AKA Raye Tracte F1), and soon enough dumped them, is a fantasy they haven't quite given up yet. The EFV, which, though fortunately dead, promised to do little or nothing the AAV-7 doesn't, and at preposterous expense. The Osprey, which, yes, sounds kind of neat but still seems to have serious teething troubles. After 36 years in production. And no one else seems to want it.
Fourth Gen Warfare might as well be called 0-Gen warfare. It's just going back to a time when war was continuous, and no peace was possible.
Actually, little known but, at least a couple-three decades ago and maybe still, true; the Corps used to keep a large number of LVTP-5s for the Army.
That said, I agree with you about intellectual freedom, up to a point, anyway, in the Corps. The point is when a four star decides on something nonsensical, like OODA, and forces it down everyone's throats, eliminating from service or from effectiveness anyone who disputes its wisdom. Oh, yes, the Army is every bit as bad. See, again, Pentomic and UEx/UEy.
I don't mind some of it, but there is a point that are playing with is someone else's job. Ditch the tanks I'm fine with. Robot missile launchers running non stop from hiding place to hiding place on an island, great but someone else's job. ASW UAVs, great but someone else's job. Loitering munitions off a small combat boat already being bought in the hundreds by the Navy, someone else's job. All good ideas, but where is the Amphibious assault good ideas, because I'm actually kind of confident they exist.
"Oh, so it's really just this X we've been using for 200 years?"
Sort of like the "Fortress Fleet". I think perhaps that was the Japanese strategy during WWII. Maybe even US strategy back then, what with Guam, Philippines, etc.?
Sometimes you can even get them on old words still officially in currency. Example, I had a Brigade XO when I was stuck in the 4 shop for about a year, and I whipped the term, "impedimenta," on him. He'd never heard it. Insisted it was obsolete. So I pulled out the manual and showed him, "Impedimenta."
Impedimenta? Yes, it's Latin. And, yes, the source of our word, impediment. Essentially the sum total of everything you must drag with you to survive and fight, from baggage to food to Class IX, and everything in between, plus the means of transporting it on land. It is the tyrannical hand of logistics, gripped tightly around your throat, keeping you from doing what your fantasies want to do.
No, we don't need to recreate the Coastal Artillery, but there are place where we ca play the A2/AD game. I'm Army, so that's where I come from, but I thought this was a good point:
"land-based batteries have a unique potential to employ superior magazine depth, higher volume of fire, and densities of drone swarms." plus they are dispersal and even when hit, hard to sink.
OK - So what ASEAN country is signing up for this? How does the logistics side of keeping this fortress supplied and relevant work out? How many Typhon batteries are we talking about here since the numbers I heard fall short compared to what a single SSGN can unleash - from anywhere.
Islands don't sink... but BM's make very big craters
I like 16 unmanned JLTVs running around on auto pilot much better than 4 large honking Mk 70 launchers sitting in place waiting to die. The Mk 70s should be on ships (small ships).
Navy is testing a sub that is Narco-like right now to bring in NSM reloads covertly. Frankly they probably rolled the reloads off with the launchers when they landed via LSM, LCU, LCAC, EPF, C-130, or CH-53, just like any other system.
Whether you can transport the NSM isn't a question to me but whether it will actually get there? If you are part of a littoral marine detachment on an island and you're not keen to leave a mark or a "tell" that you're are there, outside of the submersible, the other means you're referring to are probably not going to help in this regard and I wouldn't be terribly optimistic that they'll get to that island in one piece. PS. And you can probably bet that the marine militia is going to throw a wrench in the works as regards reconnaissance and surveillance given their huge numbers.
I have not really studied a map, but just where are these islands that we can occupy and fortify to harass the Chinese? The Chinese had to build theirs.
China holds any part of the 1st island chain at risk with their ballistic missiles from well within the interior boundaries of the PRC. I would also note the implications of the PRC's merchant militia in all of this is not something to be taken lightly as regards their contribution to reconnaissance and surveillance. They can clandestinely observe much in areas where we are seeking to operate unnoticed. Their numbers are huge and I suspect their potential influence is not something to trivialize. Coastal watchers during WWII were quite effective... there is no reason to believe this next generation approach will not be consequential.
“America’s primary landpower institution” - just say “the Army”, I can handle it. “Landpower” is one of the rare instances where the Army jealously apes the Navy, and cobbles together its own version of the much older term “seapower”.
What is a “twenty-first-century coastal fort complex in forward areas” if you lack command of the sea and air? A better term for it is “prisoner of war camp”. Like Bataan in 1942, all it can do is sit there with no hope of relief until it runs out of food and bullets. Unlike 1942, however, in a future war with China there will be no analogy to 1944, when a mighty US Navy of newly built ships liberates the long-lost “coastal fort complex”. In this decade it’s China with the vast construction capacity not America. And in 1944, Japan had its own “coastal fort complexes”, which we either picked off one by one (Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo etc.) or let wither on the vine (Truk, Rabaul). Once Japanese seapower and airpower was neutralized, her landpower on the various islands was barely relevant. If we wanted an island, we massed overwhelming force against it, and we’d better assume China will do the same in a future Pacific war.
Should do wonders for a soldier’s morale to be assigned to a doomed “twenty-first-century coastal fort complex in forward areas”…
MacArthur raged about the Navy's cowardice, but that was not merely unfair, but absurd. The article you link gives the reasons why resupply attempts failed. The Navy simply did not have the power to force their way into Manila Bay at the time.
I'd put SOCOM to work on their land based border areas if we can get any of their neighbors to play along. Anything to distract this massive land power from the ocean.
The Army need not worry about being left out. Any war in the Pacific will surely be accompanied by war in Korea and Southeast Asia.
We should not forget that while General MacArthur was island hopping back to the Philippines on his way to Tokyo Bay, Lord Mountbatten was back in Mandalay and on his way to Singapore.
Love this one. Yo Army? So how's mobilizing your former 21st century command posts going so they're a not a crater if they emit signals? Got doctrine all updated for the curveballs that Uk is throwing ala FARAA and cancellation of son of Abrams III? M-SHORAD, swarms, all worked out? So how does this parking extended range BM's in the region going to work out? Are you going to do that before D+0 because that's what's called a "tell" in the trade... and I can imagine ASEAN all warm & cuddly about dealing with the PRC's memory of when that country hosted your 21st century version of a coastal fortress... seem to recall China still holding onto the whole "Century of Humiliation" thingy. And yes, can't sink an island but a few ballistic missiles create a very nice crater where you stuff is sitting and Patriot & THAAD do emit enough to say "here I am, send me your love" from a long ways off, as would the logistics of sustainaing said "fortress" - unnoticeable I'm certain. So 21st century that coastal fortress while the Navy continues to bootstrap a budget to get a fleet that is a fraction of the size needed for the mission she has... all hail the glory that is "jointness"
What a great bad concept...idea...proposal to highlight how bankrupt our military academic culture has become. We island hopped during WW II to avoid strongpoints or reduce as we chose to (not always wisely, see Rabaul vs Tarawa). Much of the rest of this is authentic military gibberish (Army strain) and an examplar of how the army attempts to shape the battlefield to ensure they are relevant and funded in future POM cycles. The USMC would be wise to pay attention, as they appear to be sacrificing their niche but important mission set to something that appears more than a little bit of a fool's errand.
Bankrupt and historically illiterate seems to be the current military academic culture. Before casting stones though, we should continue pondering that our we have our own FOs who believe the operation in the Bab al-Mandab is the most kinetic since the end of WW2.
Sal your 2nd point on the bad history is important. Only those fortresses with interior lines of communication have been effective. Island forts can bypassed and starved. Not sure who will supply those scattered Army garrisons in a world where Sealift and CLF are in short supply.
Correct. That is why they need to be "deployable." They will need to be moved with the force and not tied down in a hard location like the coastal forts of old. That would lead to the follow-on question; "how will they deploy" which leads to more sealift etc.
Well done, CDR! I read through it and had the same reaction - it sounded like the usual pitch for why one service should have a bigger part of the budget pie. The Army Fortresses, however, just create targets and a race to build something hard enough to resist the missiles targeted at it in an upward spiral. They need to be mobile, not stuck in a Fortress that can be targeted, in the end, with ONE big bomb if necessary.
If "Joint" is the objective, it is kind of obvious in the Western Pacific that we need to harden our air bases (more of them, dispersed) to protect repair, maintenance, and logistics along with the planes they support (hopefully not on the ground) so the planes have a place to base from and reload their missiles. Same with the Navy - lots and lots of replenishment and support ports/options to reload the magazines and repair damage along with more missile launchers on every ship you can put them on (manned, unmanned, big, small). Lots and lots of offensive and defensive missiles and platforms to deliver them (this is where the Army and Marines could have a land-borne role but with mobile systems, not fortresses). All of it linked by a C4ISR system between services that actually talk to each other and integrates response and action.
I think we've all said those things...nothing new. What I would say, though, is that we first need to get the manufacturing base in order. We need more people trained to work in shipyards/steel/chip making/missile production, more shipyards (production and repair), more aerospace production (planes and missiles), across the board. Leading edge is missiles, followed by surface combatants and subs (longer timeline - we need to triple output of all), strike assets (planes and LR missiles...long build timeline, but not as long as ships)...I could go on.
So, the actual budget argument is not over the size of your piece of pie, it is that the pie needs to be much bigger and (to torture the analogy) the people making it need to be bringing the right ingredients to the pie. The problem is the people in the kitchen are at cross purposes, quite often. It has happened in the past when we ignore and deride such requirements - it usually takes a shock like Pearl Harbor to get us out of that mindset.
Wake me when the Army announces a "joint" proposal to assault, occupy, and fortify with air and ballistic missile defenses the Hanish island chain and Zubair island chain in the Red Sea north of the Bab al-Mandab. I'm certain our task force would appreciate the overlapping fields of fire that they could provide. Put the good Professor-Colonel in charge of the operation as a theory-to-practice exercise.
The Navy, through MSC, and TRANSCOM, using the DOT's MARAD, have fucked the Strategic Sealift Program to a point where the ships have a dispatch rate of nuclear attack subs, like less than 75%.
"a cumbersome read, written in a buzzword festooned manner like an overly eager O3"
Ha! Oh, thankyou kind Sir, for a grin just before I retire for the eve....
maybe, maybe...the idea is to have the enemy's eyes glaze over after trying to sort through all the gobbledegook? 'n that way we can prevail?
(by the way....GREAT picture to begin with!)
Fort Barrancas is less than an hour's drive from where I live. Been there many times and like that old coastal fort. It's a real piece of history. But when LtCol Jennings used coastal forts as a premise for his bold new idea to empower ground forces to more decisively influence tactics and strategy in maritime environments, he lost my attention, and confidence. How ever would he build, man, supply and protect them west of the International Dateline? And does he think the Navy will get enthused enough to help? Hah! To say nothing of environmental impact studies and foreign NIMBY's picketing the construction sites. No...let's take the money we'll save building coastal forts and use it to buy DDG's, AD's, AE's, AO's and maybe a dozen OHP FFG's.
But ... but ... think of the intimidation factor when we build a modern Fort Ében-Émael on an unpopulated island in the Northern Marianas!
Verdun on the beach?
Lochnagar Mine on the beach ... German side.
That is quite a hole in the ground!
We have USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206) but that is not enough. How about a fort on either Quemoy or Matsu Island named "Harvey Banard Milk Fortress of Democracy"? We need to stick it to China good and hard.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Harvey_Milk_in_Dress_Navy_1954.jpg/255px-Harvey_Milk_in_Dress_Navy_1954.jpg
Depends on whether ol' Harvey was a sticker or a stickee, no?
I dunno. Pretty sure there's a pronoun or Geschlechterwort to cover any shtik.
I'll say what you won't say. Jennings is an idiot. It sounds harsh but he is just so far from the emerging reality. A reality that has no real place for the army (on these issues).
In the decades to come, SpaceX will have reusable rockets that can put vast quantities of 'stuff' into space. Stuff that doesn't have to be expensive 'space' stuff or a million functions crammed into a single package.
We can see everything from space today. Starlink proves that we can launch thousands of imaging satellites of varying types faster than anyone can take them down.
And once we see, we can use the same space technology to deliver hundreds of tons of smart weapons anywhere in 90 minutes or so. Forgetting about treaty issues, we can stuff near space with kinetic and non kinetic weapons and use SpaceX launches to directly deliver pallets of air launched ai weapons. And starting right now, while we are waiting for SpaceX to get it's development done, we could use modified commercial air platforms to drop pallets of weapons from a stand off distance.
There is nothing on the seas that could withstand these kinds of assaults. Even with good defensive weapons, the simple fact is they will be on empty long before the tons of weapons stop being launched. Think about B29s over Japan. Except the bombs are smart and the planes / space platforms are far away.
And all of these should be navy. The role of the navy isn't to drive ships around the sea. The role of the navy is to dominate and control anything on water. The navy is about a role not about equipment. The navy learned this in WW2 when aircraft became the key for domination. It's time to remember that lesson.
And none of this has anything to do with the army. There really is a lot the army should be doing but it isn't on water.
Smart army people should be spending their time understanding this new set of technologies and learning how to use them. Like a drone being more effective and cheaper than a 155mm shell. Jennings is a distraction and that is harmful to all the services.
A tiny comms satellite does not equal a tiny imaging satellite, but I generally like what you are driving at here. Stationary has had and will continue to have very little to no future in warfare. Shoot and scoot will apply to things like get water and scoot, get gas and scoot, sleep and scoot. Eventually i might all be scooting until its time to change the tires.
Andy,
take a look at this link: https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/missions/iceye
In this link you will see a picture of a Synthetic Aperture Radar. Not that big and remarkably similar to the physical shape and size of a Starlink satellite. Stackable so a dozen or more could be in a single launch. The ability to launch for $100 to $400 per pound is a monster game changer when coupled with reusable launchers that that can provide launch cycles now in days and hours in the near future.
I used Starlink in Antarctica in December hundreds of miles from the nearest anything. A mere 4,000 satellites and the internet is literally available anywhere. The same number or perhaps a mere 1,000 creates a world where no ship is 'invisible' or hidden in real time. Any Chinese ship or fleet can be tracked and then sunk. If you can't hide and I can put kinetic rods in place overhead in less than 90 minutes then game over for surface ships of any kind.
Again, like the transition to aircraft centric in WW2, the world of the Navy is changing in a fundamental way. Failure to change is terminal and, for the US Navy, there is a 'first mover' advantage that can create a lasting (20 to 40 years) sea supremacy.
Thanks for the comment.
Yeah, hiding may become impossible. hey will put the kill chain together, but its not quite there.
Yes, not there yet. But certainly within a 10 to 20 year window as long as the defense establishment understands what is the reality and act accordingly.
As I alluded to, the 'kill chain' has some short term options that are almost immediately available. Full visibility with SAR is only a few billion including launch costs. Starlink like construction / manufacture and launch on Falcon 9's dedicated to these launches. With appropriate computer tech (no new ground, just execution) a full system in place in 5 years is not heavy lifting.
About the same amount of time needed for commercial aircraft and Falcon 9 rockets to be modified to drop pallets of high speed rockets on sea targets (obviously other uses as well).
This gives the ability to respond in size to any sea threat in 90 minutes to a few hours. Pretty sobering if you are on the receiving end.
Not quite there but really close and relatively inexpensive. It just needs to be a priority.
In a total war situation with a peer like the PRC, wouldn't you have to assume that anything in orbit around Earth will be floating debris within the first six months?
Yes. But this is not a war fighting deterrent. And anything is not everything.
The current model is that 30 or so GPS satellites or 50 SAR satellites are a defensible system. Hugely expensive satellites. And a couple of hundred antisats leave us blind and lost.
The new SpaceX model is a real change. Thousands of relatively inexpensive satellites performing just a few key functions launched by reusable rockets that bring launch cost down by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. Combined with massive surface stocks of replacements along with a rapid launch cadence, the PRC and every other country runs out of antisats long before the USA runs out of platforms.
Taking down thousands of satellites is really hard. And takes awhile. And I'm assuming that countries trying to shoot down hundreds or thousands of US satellites are going to get strong kinetic and electronic feedback from the USA. The PRC won't have any satellites or launch facilities pretty quick. Right now they don't have 5,000 internet satellites. They have just a few. In 5 years we could have 5,000 each of GPS, SAR and other types. The PRC hasn't yet developed a Falcon 9 equivalent let alone a Starship. The cost of launch of 5,000 satellites using single use rockets and launch cadences measured in weeks or months is all but impossible and very close to financially impossible.
Right now, the USA has (because of SpaceX) an incredible first mover advantage. It would allow for US domination of space and sea. But first mover advantage stays only when it is continued to be pushed forward as fast as possible.
I know what can be done. It's clear. I fear what won't be done because of organizational competitiveness, inertia, and stupidity. SpaceX is trying as hard as it can to give the US a huge advantage via Starship development and the US government response isn't to help but rather to bring in the Fish & Wildlife Service to slow things down. Imagine the Manhattan Project under todays rules and conditions. SpaceX should be considered a Manhattan Project type event.
"Jennings is an idiot."
Not just an ordinary idiot, though. He has a Ph.D. Hence the old joke---Ph.D. stands for "Piled Higher and Deeper".
Army writing...Jesus...
I can write. The other officers who can...I think I could count them on the fingers of both hands, and not have to take off my shoes and socks or unzip my fly.
We used to have a pretty good course, CAS3, that, more or less inadvertently, cut down on the buzzword bingo. Now? Hopeless.
As for this idea, no; let the Corps, infected by that idiot Berger, take over the fortress mission. Or dump it, if they can, in time. The Army needs to remain the Army, designed and trained to close with and destroy the enemy by means of fire and maneuver or repel his assault by means of fire, close combat, and counterattack. Everything else is a distraction and a waste.
Addendum: A course of action I commend to people, whenever faced with a new buzzword or acronym pretend you have no idea what it means and insist that the user of the buzzword or acronym explain what it means and how it is different from previous English usage. Then, say, "Oh, so it's really just this X we've been using for 200 years?" Drives them batshit.
Berger really is a dumbass, isn't he? He's done more damage to them USMC than the Japanese and the North Koreans combined - I suppose that's some sort of accomplishment in a Guinness Book way but not very good for the country.
Other than that, the article was a monumental bowl of word salad, as Justice Learned Hand said of the tax code, "Like trying to watch ants scurry around on a sheet of paper."
Berger really deserves the honor of having Dunning-Kruger renamed Dunning-Kruger-Berger.
Something about the Marines gives them a fascination with nonsense intellectualism...oh, and weird equipment, too. Decision cycle theory took them over for a decade or so but now, under the continuous assault of common sense, it's reduced to a mere footnote in their Warfighting manual. This crap will pass too, but the time lost in both trying to make it work and then changing back to the real world will never be regained.
Mind, the Army can be just as stupid. Think here: Pentomic and Son-of-Pentomic, aka the idiocyfest that is UEx and UEy.
The last weird equipment I recall was the Ontos, and they were all destroyed in the RVN. By and large our gear was okay, nothing spectacular because most was leftover from the Sisters.
On the whole, the Corps was greatly advantaged in allowing our officers room for creativity. Francis X Hammes was let loose to develop the 4th Generation Warfare concept. I doubt the other services would have accepted that range of intellectual freedom. Berger's horse shit is as logically thin as damp toilet tissue, and begs comparison to strategic doctrine placing antebellum Marines on Wake. They lacked the firepower to defeat Japanese attack, and - quelle horreur! - the USN couldn't either reinforce or evacuate. Check out the tune frame where DC repeatedly intones to just hold out, when everybody in the War Department knew it wasn't going to happen.
But let's return to those "golden days of yesteryear," by all means. It's tiring to be the big dog on the porch nobody wants to provoke.
Nothing like having to reestablish our pecking order status every six months.
The Howtar (4.2" mortar mounted on a 75mm pack how carriage) which, since they bought a bunch of French Thompson-Brandt 120 LRs (AKA Raye Tracte F1), and soon enough dumped them, is a fantasy they haven't quite given up yet. The EFV, which, though fortunately dead, promised to do little or nothing the AAV-7 doesn't, and at preposterous expense. The Osprey, which, yes, sounds kind of neat but still seems to have serious teething troubles. After 36 years in production. And no one else seems to want it.
Fourth Gen Warfare might as well be called 0-Gen warfare. It's just going back to a time when war was continuous, and no peace was possible.
Actually, little known but, at least a couple-three decades ago and maybe still, true; the Corps used to keep a large number of LVTP-5s for the Army.
That said, I agree with you about intellectual freedom, up to a point, anyway, in the Corps. The point is when a four star decides on something nonsensical, like OODA, and forces it down everyone's throats, eliminating from service or from effectiveness anyone who disputes its wisdom. Oh, yes, the Army is every bit as bad. See, again, Pentomic and UEx/UEy.
OODA? Nonsensical? You can look for an article done by a Marine colonel, then a major, one Craig Tucker, who got eased out on unrelated matters, or here: https://tomkratman.com/indirectly-mistaken-decision-cycles/
Hmmm...It seems Japan bought some 14 Ospreys and USAF half a dozen or so. Still damning by faint support.
I don't mind some of it, but there is a point that are playing with is someone else's job. Ditch the tanks I'm fine with. Robot missile launchers running non stop from hiding place to hiding place on an island, great but someone else's job. ASW UAVs, great but someone else's job. Loitering munitions off a small combat boat already being bought in the hundreds by the Navy, someone else's job. All good ideas, but where is the Amphibious assault good ideas, because I'm actually kind of confident they exist.
"Oh, so it's really just this X we've been using for 200 years?"
Sort of like the "Fortress Fleet". I think perhaps that was the Japanese strategy during WWII. Maybe even US strategy back then, what with Guam, Philippines, etc.?
Sometimes you can even get them on old words still officially in currency. Example, I had a Brigade XO when I was stuck in the 4 shop for about a year, and I whipped the term, "impedimenta," on him. He'd never heard it. Insisted it was obsolete. So I pulled out the manual and showed him, "Impedimenta."
Impedimenta? Yes, it's Latin. And, yes, the source of our word, impediment. Essentially the sum total of everything you must drag with you to survive and fight, from baggage to food to Class IX, and everything in between, plus the means of transporting it on land. It is the tyrannical hand of logistics, gripped tightly around your throat, keeping you from doing what your fantasies want to do.
No, we don't need to recreate the Coastal Artillery, but there are place where we ca play the A2/AD game. I'm Army, so that's where I come from, but I thought this was a good point:
"land-based batteries have a unique potential to employ superior magazine depth, higher volume of fire, and densities of drone swarms." plus they are dispersal and even when hit, hard to sink.
OK - So what ASEAN country is signing up for this? How does the logistics side of keeping this fortress supplied and relevant work out? How many Typhon batteries are we talking about here since the numbers I heard fall short compared to what a single SSGN can unleash - from anywhere.
Islands don't sink... but BM's make very big craters
At some point, perhaps the PI.
Want to irritate the PLAN? Put the batteries under joint US-PI control, like we used in Europe with our nukes.
I like 16 unmanned JLTVs running around on auto pilot much better than 4 large honking Mk 70 launchers sitting in place waiting to die. The Mk 70s should be on ships (small ships).
And how do you logistically sustain said JLTVs after they went winchester?
Navy is testing a sub that is Narco-like right now to bring in NSM reloads covertly. Frankly they probably rolled the reloads off with the launchers when they landed via LSM, LCU, LCAC, EPF, C-130, or CH-53, just like any other system.
Whether you can transport the NSM isn't a question to me but whether it will actually get there? If you are part of a littoral marine detachment on an island and you're not keen to leave a mark or a "tell" that you're are there, outside of the submersible, the other means you're referring to are probably not going to help in this regard and I wouldn't be terribly optimistic that they'll get to that island in one piece. PS. And you can probably bet that the marine militia is going to throw a wrench in the works as regards reconnaissance and surveillance given their huge numbers.
I have not really studied a map, but just where are these islands that we can occupy and fortify to harass the Chinese? The Chinese had to build theirs.
China holds any part of the 1st island chain at risk with their ballistic missiles from well within the interior boundaries of the PRC. I would also note the implications of the PRC's merchant militia in all of this is not something to be taken lightly as regards their contribution to reconnaissance and surveillance. They can clandestinely observe much in areas where we are seeking to operate unnoticed. Their numbers are huge and I suspect their potential influence is not something to trivialize. Coastal watchers during WWII were quite effective... there is no reason to believe this next generation approach will not be consequential.
Maybe in the continental U.S., where is this bottomless pit of ammo going to safely reside on a Pacific atoll?
“America’s primary landpower institution” - just say “the Army”, I can handle it. “Landpower” is one of the rare instances where the Army jealously apes the Navy, and cobbles together its own version of the much older term “seapower”.
What is a “twenty-first-century coastal fort complex in forward areas” if you lack command of the sea and air? A better term for it is “prisoner of war camp”. Like Bataan in 1942, all it can do is sit there with no hope of relief until it runs out of food and bullets. Unlike 1942, however, in a future war with China there will be no analogy to 1944, when a mighty US Navy of newly built ships liberates the long-lost “coastal fort complex”. In this decade it’s China with the vast construction capacity not America. And in 1944, Japan had its own “coastal fort complexes”, which we either picked off one by one (Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo etc.) or let wither on the vine (Truk, Rabaul). Once Japanese seapower and airpower was neutralized, her landpower on the various islands was barely relevant. If we wanted an island, we massed overwhelming force against it, and we’d better assume China will do the same in a future Pacific war.
Should do wonders for a soldier’s morale to be assigned to a doomed “twenty-first-century coastal fort complex in forward areas”…
Let us consider the resupply (or lack their of) effort to the Philippine forces in 1942. Are we more capable or better led today? https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol18/tnm_18_3-4_163-172.pdf
MacArthur raged about the Navy's cowardice, but that was not merely unfair, but absurd. The article you link gives the reasons why resupply attempts failed. The Navy simply did not have the power to force their way into Manila Bay at the time.
Well, it's better than the Army launches amphibious assault on Myanmar, then invades China, option that has probably been discussed.
I'd put SOCOM to work on their land based border areas if we can get any of their neighbors to play along. Anything to distract this massive land power from the ocean.
The Army need not worry about being left out. Any war in the Pacific will surely be accompanied by war in Korea and Southeast Asia.
We should not forget that while General MacArthur was island hopping back to the Philippines on his way to Tokyo Bay, Lord Mountbatten was back in Mandalay and on his way to Singapore.
…like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay.
"The Army should run things in the Pacific" has to be the result of MacArthur's ghost whispering in the author's ear, right?
The general has returned.
They still answer the roll for him in the PI Army.
Love this one. Yo Army? So how's mobilizing your former 21st century command posts going so they're a not a crater if they emit signals? Got doctrine all updated for the curveballs that Uk is throwing ala FARAA and cancellation of son of Abrams III? M-SHORAD, swarms, all worked out? So how does this parking extended range BM's in the region going to work out? Are you going to do that before D+0 because that's what's called a "tell" in the trade... and I can imagine ASEAN all warm & cuddly about dealing with the PRC's memory of when that country hosted your 21st century version of a coastal fortress... seem to recall China still holding onto the whole "Century of Humiliation" thingy. And yes, can't sink an island but a few ballistic missiles create a very nice crater where you stuff is sitting and Patriot & THAAD do emit enough to say "here I am, send me your love" from a long ways off, as would the logistics of sustainaing said "fortress" - unnoticeable I'm certain. So 21st century that coastal fortress while the Navy continues to bootstrap a budget to get a fleet that is a fraction of the size needed for the mission she has... all hail the glory that is "jointness"
What a great bad concept...idea...proposal to highlight how bankrupt our military academic culture has become. We island hopped during WW II to avoid strongpoints or reduce as we chose to (not always wisely, see Rabaul vs Tarawa). Much of the rest of this is authentic military gibberish (Army strain) and an examplar of how the army attempts to shape the battlefield to ensure they are relevant and funded in future POM cycles. The USMC would be wise to pay attention, as they appear to be sacrificing their niche but important mission set to something that appears more than a little bit of a fool's errand.
Bankrupt and historically illiterate seems to be the current military academic culture. Before casting stones though, we should continue pondering that our we have our own FOs who believe the operation in the Bab al-Mandab is the most kinetic since the end of WW2.
"...a cumbersome read, written in a buzzword festooned manner like an overly eager O3, not an O5 with a PhD."
Followed by "I don’t want to be mean, but …" OUCH! A well deserved smackdown!
We all know the word "but" means that the preceding phrase is just for show.
Sal your 2nd point on the bad history is important. Only those fortresses with interior lines of communication have been effective. Island forts can bypassed and starved. Not sure who will supply those scattered Army garrisons in a world where Sealift and CLF are in short supply.
Correct. That is why they need to be "deployable." They will need to be moved with the force and not tied down in a hard location like the coastal forts of old. That would lead to the follow-on question; "how will they deploy" which leads to more sealift etc.
Yes, as we would want to avoid the fate of the Philippine fortresses that were tough and survivable but were surrounded and forced to surrender.
Well done, CDR! I read through it and had the same reaction - it sounded like the usual pitch for why one service should have a bigger part of the budget pie. The Army Fortresses, however, just create targets and a race to build something hard enough to resist the missiles targeted at it in an upward spiral. They need to be mobile, not stuck in a Fortress that can be targeted, in the end, with ONE big bomb if necessary.
If "Joint" is the objective, it is kind of obvious in the Western Pacific that we need to harden our air bases (more of them, dispersed) to protect repair, maintenance, and logistics along with the planes they support (hopefully not on the ground) so the planes have a place to base from and reload their missiles. Same with the Navy - lots and lots of replenishment and support ports/options to reload the magazines and repair damage along with more missile launchers on every ship you can put them on (manned, unmanned, big, small). Lots and lots of offensive and defensive missiles and platforms to deliver them (this is where the Army and Marines could have a land-borne role but with mobile systems, not fortresses). All of it linked by a C4ISR system between services that actually talk to each other and integrates response and action.
I think we've all said those things...nothing new. What I would say, though, is that we first need to get the manufacturing base in order. We need more people trained to work in shipyards/steel/chip making/missile production, more shipyards (production and repair), more aerospace production (planes and missiles), across the board. Leading edge is missiles, followed by surface combatants and subs (longer timeline - we need to triple output of all), strike assets (planes and LR missiles...long build timeline, but not as long as ships)...I could go on.
So, the actual budget argument is not over the size of your piece of pie, it is that the pie needs to be much bigger and (to torture the analogy) the people making it need to be bringing the right ingredients to the pie. The problem is the people in the kitchen are at cross purposes, quite often. It has happened in the past when we ignore and deride such requirements - it usually takes a shock like Pearl Harbor to get us out of that mindset.
Wake me when the Army announces a "joint" proposal to assault, occupy, and fortify with air and ballistic missile defenses the Hanish island chain and Zubair island chain in the Red Sea north of the Bab al-Mandab. I'm certain our task force would appreciate the overlapping fields of fire that they could provide. Put the good Professor-Colonel in charge of the operation as a theory-to-practice exercise.
struggling with the word salad... excellent decipher Sal!
CDR Sal,
I agree EXCEPT ON STRATIGIC SEALIFT.
Yes, I was speaking loudly.
The Navy, through MSC, and TRANSCOM, using the DOT's MARAD, have fucked the Strategic Sealift Program to a point where the ships have a dispatch rate of nuclear attack subs, like less than 75%.
Thanks for the great content,
Cap'n Andy
DOT needs to be run by professionals not politicians. Transportation is important.