Naval News attended an event last month on the U.S. Marine Corps' (USMC) newly revised Logistics Doctrine. We asked the USMC how an enemy’s long-range precision fires (LRPF) can affect USMC logistics.
Major Jim Stenger, Public Affairs contact, Assistant Operations Officer & Lead Spokesperson at USMC Headquarters stated that every 10 years the U.S. Marine Corps reviews its Logistics Doctrine, meaning the last review was conducted in 2013. A lot has changed since 2013 with peer nation challenges, the rise of drones and battlefield technology, and cyber-attacks. Of particular concern is the long range of the enemy’s precision fires: subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic missiles that can outrange U.S. and allied offensive and defensive missile systems. Naval News asked USMC Headquarters how the enemy’s long-range precision fires (LRPF) might affect USMC logistics in the future.
Colonel Aaron A. Angell, USMC Deputy Commandant/Installations and Logistics, replied that the Ukraine War provides many good lessons as both sides are employing LRPF missiles (and the manned or unmanned sensor technologies to provide LRPFs targeting). Col. Angell said that some LRPF lessons in Ukraine are that LRPFs offer speed, are more precise, and create a contested logistics battlefield environment. Now long-range precision fires are a threat across the entire battlefield, admitted Col. Angell, and enemy LRPFs can extend to the range of USMC (expeditionary) advanced bases. Some missiles can even reach the continental United States and the USMC has to account for that in the logistics system.
“Contested logistics is an environment in which the armed forces engage in conflict with an adversary that presents challenges in all domains and directly targets logistics operations, facilities, and activities.”
“Logistics Determine Your Destiny: What Russia’s Invasion is (Re)Teaching Us about Contested Logistics.” Michael Hugos, Edward Salo, Ryan Kuhns and Ben Hazen for Modern War Institute.
Thus, the Corps is looking for an integrated defense package to deal with cyber challenges and provide kinetic intercepts to address future threats in the contested logistics environment. “What do we have for [incoming] enemy LRPFs indications and warnings?” asked Col. Angell rhetorically. Col. Angell continued that the USMC will need a layered defense for LRPFs and planning for the defense of the under-construction U.S. Marine Corps base, Camp Blaz, in Guam. The USMC will also need C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and counter-fire capabilities and recovering capabilities for USMC Stand-in Forces (SIF), small groups of Marines stationed to defend Pacific islands, that make up USMC Commandant General David Berger’s Force Design 2030 SIF concept.
Naval News and Author’s Comments
Granted, USMC SIFs are supposed to be small, light, fast, and mobile to increase their survivability, thus making them very hard to detect, and not depend on a noticeable logistics tail. That would factor into the enemy’s decision not to waste LRPFs on SIFs if SIFs’ locations are generally unknown, or SIFs are so small that an enemy would not waste an expensive missile to destroy them. Historically, unlike the U.S. Army, the USMC has been pretty weak in ground air defense with the 3-mile (5 kilometer) range FIM-92 Stinger short-range air defense (SHORAD) missile compromising the bulk of USMC’s ground air defense.
The Stinger is a shoulder-fired, fire-and-forget surface-to-air missile (SAM) with a passive infrared/negative ultraviolet seeker and can counter high-speed aircraft and helicopters, jet or propeller, flying at low altitudes. Stinger also has a limited capability in dealing with unmanned aerial systems (UAS); however, when it comes to intercepting large and fast enemy missiles, human-eye-aimed-Stinger is deemed too slow and low in altitude to counter LRPF missile threats.
In fighting as a Joint Force, besides the Stinger SHORAD, the U.S. Army provides Patriot SAM to deal with fast enemy jets, helicopters, and tactical ballistic missiles, and the Theater High-Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) to deal with high-speed, high-altitude ballistic missiles. The U.S. Army can also provide low-level air defense with “Centurion,” a 20mm Phalanx Close-in Weapons System (CIWS) mounted on a trailer, the “Iron Dome,” a multi-mission SHORAD SAM launcher, and vehicle-mounted lasers against incoming enemy small rockets, mortar shells, and artillery shells. The USMC has neither Army Patriot, THAAD, and Centurion, but is fielding “Iron Dome.” It is unclear if vehicle lasers will enter the USMC arsenal in the future. Naval News reached out to USMC PEO Land Systems Public Affairs who acknowledged the inquiry but did not return any comments on the USMC’s “Iron Dome.”
Therefore, the USMC often depends on the U.S. Navy’s AEGIS and Vertical Launch System (VLS) warships with Standard missiles for theater-wide air and LRPF missile defense in addition to the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Air Wing (CAW). This also includes the USMC’s F-35Bs short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) jets, F-18 “Hornet” jets, AH-1Z “Viper” attack helicopters, and AV-8 “Harrier” jump jets that compromise the Marine Air Wing (MAW). Together, the CAW and MAW use air-to-air missiles such as the radar-guided AIM-120 AMRAAM and the infrared heat-seeking AIM-9X missile to intercept incoming enemy LRPF missiles. Together, U.S. warships and warplanes, armed with dozens of these LRPF missiles, can counter and intercept enemy LRPFs with their long-range planes and far-reaching missiles. In reality, respectively, SIFs and USMC bases are not always covered under the air defense umbrella or U.S. Navy AEGIS VLS warships or CAW and MAW, as Col. Angell alluded to, and thus the U.S. Marines will have to develop their own Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS).
USMC MADIS consists of two vehicles that operate together: the Mark 1 Stinger variant, and the Mark 2 Counter-UAS (C-UAS) variant. The Mark 1 and 2 form the Marines’ low-altitude air defense battalions and can be on a Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicle (ATV), or on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) fitted with a four-shot Stinger pod, 30mm chaingun, and a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun in a RIwP turret. Some C-UAS JLTVs use a 7.62mm gatling gun as the primary armament.
The L-MADIS (pictured below) uses a Polaris MRZR ATV equipped with 360-degree radars, radio-frequency jammers, and electro-optical/infrared sensors to jam incoming UAS and drone swarms.
However, none of the USMC MADIS ground systems can deal with incoming large and fast LRPFs missiles launched from transporter erector launcher trucks (TELs) such as those possessed by peer nations because the small MADIS Stingers lack the range and warhead punch and were not designed for use against tactical ballistic missiles. The “Iron Dome” is one SAM system that can deal with some incoming LRPF enemy missiles although its range is still short. Furthermore, the USMC MADIS system works against an enemy with a low quantity of jets and helicopters as the Marines are usually not equipped to carry a vast stock of Stingers in their MADIS vehicles (2-4 Stingers ready-to-fire at best before reloading).
The USMC is employing the Mark 41 VLS on a semi-trailer, but it remains unclear on if the USMC plans to employ Standard and Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles in the future, the same LRPF surface-to-air missiles used aboard Navy warships with VLS, for longer-range air defense besides just using the Tomahawk surface strike cruise missile. The U.S. Navy’s FFG 62 USS Constellation-class frigate and LUSV with Mark 41 VLS shipping containers may contribute in the future to SIF air defense.
What’s troubling is that there might not be an easily solution to the USMC’s poor air ground defense coverage outside of the MADIS and “Iron Dome” without employing the use of the Joint Force and allied partners’ longer-ranged SAM systems, an attribute that the U.S. Department of Defense notes that the U.S. often does not fight alone but fights with its allies and partners. If the Joint Force can get to the scene in time with the LRPF SAM coverage during a conflict while battling in a contested logistics environment against the enemy’s LRPFs is subject to debate.