By Geoff Fein
To continue to provide tactical mobility, the Marine Corps will have to continue buying Humvees until the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) makes its debut, a Marine Corps official said.
Additionally, there is a concern with the ability to provide volume fires and surface fire support to Marines on the ground since the Navy ceased fundingRaytheon‘s [RTN] Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) program, the official added.
When he was a helicopter commander, one of the more “irate” individuals Lt. Gen. John Castellaw said he ever came across was a company commander he dumped about “three clicks away from the real zone.”
The company commander had to “hump over some pretty interesting terrain to get to where he was going into the fight,” Castellaw told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“Vehicle transportation, when we operate in an environment like Iraq or Afghanistan, is extremely important. We have bought somewhere in the neighborhood, since 1982, 40,000 Humvees of all varieties,” he said. “About 25,000 are A1s and older model A2s, and those vehicles are not what we want to go into combat with.”
That is because those vehicles are not armored, Castellaw added.
“We’ve got another 15,000 or more that are A2s that we put Marine armor kits on. That’s what we first did when we responded to the threat,” he said. “We got about 5,000 to 6,000 of those…half are going to reach the end of their service life in FY ’10. The other half in FY ’11.”
The Marines have lost just over 1,000 Humvees in combat operations, Castellaw noted.
“As we look ahead, JLTV is going to IOC (initial operational capability) in FY ’15, so we are going to need to continue to buy Humvees,” he added.
Those Humvees are going to need to be expanded capability vehicles to have ground tactical mobility protected, Castellaw said. “Ground mobility is extremely important to us. Until we get JLTV, we are going to continue to buy Armored Humvees.”
As casualties and injuries due to improvised explosive devices (IED) began to mount in Iraq, Pentagon officials quickly began to press forward with acquiring Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. Castellaw said MRAPs have proven to be a tremendous success, not only in protecting Marines and soldiers, but in the acquisition process and in industry’s response and the ability of the Navy, Marine Corps and Army to rapidly fielded the vehicles.
But for all its success in protecting Marines, MRAPs have shown they are not the most suitable vehicle for operations in Iraq.
“MRAPs are what I call designated hitters; they fill a particular niche. They are not expeditionary. They are extremely large and mobility is restricted somewhat,” Castellaw said. “So they fill a wonderful nice. I have ridden in them in Ramadi and other parts of Al Anbar providence, and it’s nice to be inside them. But we need something that gives us tactical flexibility and so we are looking forward to development of JLTV.”
The Marine Corps will probably keep a certain number of MRAPs after operations in Iraq are over, Castellaw said. “We will use them for route clearance. We will modify them…put other stuff on them necessary to keep them ahead of the threat.”
After 36 years, Castellaw is retiring from service. His last day as deputy commandant for programs and resources was May 9. He will retire from the Marine Corps on July 1, following a ceremony and celebration in Alamo, Tenn.
In March, the Navy ceased funding its effort to develop an extended range munition. Raytheon had been working on the Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) since the mid 1990s. Although the company was able to demonstrate ERGM, the inability to show successful continuous results hampered the program. ATK [ATK] had been working on a similar effort dubbed the Ballistic Trajectory Extended Range Munition. However, ATK also failed to show results after numerous unsuccessful tests.
But while the program has ended, Castellaw said the requirement for an ERM is still there.
“[We may have] stepped away from the particular program, but [we] didn’t step away from the requirement,” he said. “MCCDC (Marine Corps Combat Development Command) works closely with the Navy. They were involved as the Navy made the decision to step away from that (ERGM). They also made the decision to reduce that capability, so we will continue to work with them,” he said. “All of this is a concern. I think we have gone down about 40 percent in the number of tubes that we have had since the 1990s. As a compensation we’ve got HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) and some of the others that give you a rate of fire and effectiveness that in some ways mitigates that. But there is always a particular value in numbers and we have gone down on those numbers.”
Castellaw equates the loss of “tubes” with the decline in tactical air assets.
“We have gone down significantly in the number of tactical air airplanes since the 90s. So we are very much interested in what other fires are available on the battlefield both with surface delivered fires, whether from the ground or from sea, and we are also interested in the other air capable platforms,” he added. “We are very close with the Navy, and we are trying to be as close as we can with the Air Force. [In April] there was a Marine Corps-Air Force warfighter discussion where we identified issues we need to work that will allow us to come closer together once we solve them.”
The Marine Corps certainly has a common ground with the Air Force on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Castellaw noted.
“So as we see the number of systems that deliver fire going down, then the remaining systems are that much more important to us. So we will continue to work with the Navy as we evolve in how they are going to provide surface support,” he said.