Marine Corps leaders are finalizing several important changes that will redefine the size, composition and capability of its smallest combat units.
The effort, according to Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, aims to equip deployed Marines with the latest battlefield technologies and, ultimately, enhance their lethality. Soon, the service's small squads and landing teams will receive tailored intelligence, cyber, and surveillance capabilities, assets typically reserved for much larger battalions and regiments. It's a necessity, Walsh told Marine Corps Times, for the types of adversaries they are likely to encounter over the next decade.
The service's commandant, Gen. Robert Neller, is expected to approve the changes by the end of September. Its details will be included in a new Marine Corps Operating Concept, a document governing how troops and units are trained, equipped and employed for years to come.
For the next 18 months, Marine Corps leaders will evaluate the work of a test unit, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, which was reconfigured and re-equipped ahead of its scheduled deployment throughout the Asia-Pacific region as part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The battalion, which is home based in California, is testing several new tactics and technologies. The work got underway in late July as part of a two-week experiment on the West Coast.
From that, evaluators concluded that company-size landing teams should be reinforced with more command-and-control capability, more unmanned aerial systems and robots with improved sensors and lasers. There needs to be more specialists and support to process, exploit, and disseminate all of this information, Walsh said.
This will likely require Marines take on additional training and qualifications, a model special operations forces have validated in the past. Walsh also is leaning toward the Marine Expeditionary Force being a “reservoir of capabilities” in which many skill sets are maintained in communications and intelligence battalions, or in a MEF information warfare group. That way, commanders can organize around tasks and tailor a force against specific threats in specific regions.
They want to call this beefed up infantry company an "expeditionary landing team."
Officials are concerned as well about the geographical distance between these landing teams and their higher headquarters. In the past, it was believed that 120 miles was sustainable, but Walsh says he's not confident that's doable in a "nonlinear" operating environment, where Marines are engaged in a high tempo campaign across the spectrum of warfare: land, air, cyber and electronic.
“They are not going to be able to operate as far out as we initially thought,” said the general, who also serves at the Marines' deputy combat for combat development and integration. An extended expeditionary landing team operation “would require significant enablers and support from the battalion.” 
|
