Marine Corps forces aboard Navy ships will be ripe targets for enemy cruise missiles in any future amphibious operation, which means they will have to project power ashore from hundreds of miles beyond the reach of its current vehicles.
The paradigm shift is causing the sea services to rethink the concept of amphibious operations in an era when even low-rung adversaries can be counted on to field guided anti-ship missiles. Smaller, lighter vehicles and a shift toward strike aviation are needed to fight future amphibious conflicts, according to a new study by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
“There is broad recognition in the department that the current paradigm of a naval force that is optimized for power projection capability in a benign environment is kind of a relic of the late half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st century,” Brig. Gen. Roger Turner, commander of the Marine Corps Capabilities Development Directorate, said this week at an event marking the report’s release. “I think we recognize that is no longer a viable concept and that paradigm is going to have to change.”
Turner said officials with both the Navy and Marine Corps concur with the general findings of the report, that amphibious ships are not optimized for operations in contested littorals and acquisition strategies need to be altered accordingly.
“The U.S. amphibious fleet is at risk of becoming unable to support U.S. deterrence and wartime operations,” the report, called “Advancing Beyond the Beach: Amphibious Operations in an Era of Precision Weapons, said. “It cannot conduct amphibious operations effectively at short range in a contested area and lacks the reach to do so from longer ranges where it would be under less of a threat. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps will need to adopt new operational concepts and field new capabilities to address these shortfalls and for its amphibious forces to regain the ability to exploit the maneuver space of the sea.”
The average weight of Marine Corps vehicles has increased over the past 15 years as armor kits were added to baseline vehicles to improve crew protection from homemade bombs. The Humvee, for example, weighed about 5,000 pounds when it entered service. Up-armored Humvees now top out at 10,000 pounds. Likewise the medium tactical vehicle replacement (MTVR), commonly called the 7-ton truck, no longer weighs seven tons. With the mass armor kit that includes under- and side-body protection and a turret, the trucks weigh in at around 50,000 pounds.
“The problem with heavy vehicle is you limit the amount that can be carried on an amphibious ship and also an amphibious connector,” said Jesse Sloman, CSBA analyst and report co-author. “What that means is you limit the amount of combat power you can bring ashore to get in the fight.”
The Marine Corps should breathe new life into the stalled internally transportable vehicle (ITV), which is designed to fly in the belly of an MV-22 Osprey for long-range insertion missions. An ITV not only gives forward deployed Marines instant mobility when they land behind enemy lines, but it can tow a 120mm mortar for an immediate indirect-fire support capability.
While the Marine Corps lightens its truck fleet, the Navy should buy surface connectors optimized for travel through the open ocean, rather than relatively short runs between ships close to shore, the study said.
“The key point here is to get away from an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle-like system,” Sloman said of the assault amphibious vehicle replacement that would have traveled 25 miles at 20 knots carrying up to 17 Marines. Those requirements ultimately proved too costly to achieve and the program was canceled.
“We feel the niche the EFV was designed to fill really doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “The idea at the time was 25 miles would let you stand capital ships far enough offshore so they would be survivable. The threat has evolved; 25 miles is no longer survivable distance. Instead you’re going to have to move hundreds of miles.”
“At hundreds of miles, you really aren’t going to get a vehicle that can do ocean travel and ground combat at the same time,” he added.
EFV was canceled in favor of a watered-down amphibious vehicle with limited swim capacity called the amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) 1.1 program. CSBA applauded the effort to procure a vehicle that is highly mobile on land but would be shuttled close to shore by a larger, more seaworthy connector like the ultra-heavy lift amphibious connector (UHAC). It is designed to carry up to three M1 Abrams tanks and move 200-300 miles through the water before driving 50 miles inland and returning to the ship.
“We feel that’s the right vision to move forward and that the Marines should sustain the scaled-back vision for amphibious assault vehicles,” Sloman says.
On the Navy side of the equation, CSBA suggests optimizing the Amphibious Ready Group and individual ships for aviation. That includes scrapping the well deck from future America-class LHA ships that originally were built without well decks and then had them added back into the design of subsequent ships.
Eventually the study recommends the Navy modify the LHA design to add catapults and arrest-and-recovery systems which will increase the size to somewhere around 40,000 tons and making them similar to the USS Midway. These ships would cost about $6 billion versus $12 billion for a Ford-class aircraft carrier.