Marine Commandant: Less A Second Land Army, More Light Amphib Ships

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Mark Esper has been “very supportive” of bold new Marine Corps plans to jettison its tanks, cut artillery units, slash the number of helicopter squadrons, and rethink the role F-35s might play, Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger told reporters this week, suggesting he’s just getting started in remaking the Corps.

“We’re more at the beginning than we are at the end” of carving out deep changes in the force structure of the Corps to meet the challenges of Chinese and Russian military modernization, Berger said. 

It’s important to note that while Esper said no to the Navy’s shipbuilding and force structure plans, a decision he received significant grief from lawmakers over, he gave the green light tot Berger’s force structure plan  released last month.

The approval of Berger’s vision, at least in its early form, could be a signal of Esper’s thinking about the wider shift for the Navy as well. Berger plans to lop off a significant portion of the Corps’ traditional strength — artillery, armor, and rotary wing lift — in favor of a leaner, more precise and much faster force. The Navy, conversely, while pledging to move forward with some unmanned ship plans, generally wants to retain its hulking aircraft carriers, dozens of big deck amphibs, and an aging destroyer fleet while introducing a new frigate to the mix.

It’s not clear that is the direction Esper wants to go. One thing the combined Marine/Navy team is working on is a new class of small amphibious ships that could set sail as early as  2023 that would be smaller and faster than the current gator fleet, a major shift in how Marines are transported to the fight.

“I laid out in detail the areas where we would be reducing or getting rid of certain capabilities,” Berger told me during the roundtable, “and the areas where we’re going to build up, and he was very supportive. His sense of the National Defense Strategy is clear and, until that that scenario changes, this is the vector we need to be on.”

Berger’s reference to the Pacific-focused NDS underscores his intent to make the force lighter, faster, and more responsive to the threats in the Pacific, while also pulling away from the grinding land wars of the past two decades.   

“We need to do less duplication of a second sort of land army and more to provide the nation unique capabilities that an amphibious and maritime and expeditionary crisis response force provides,” he said, meaning the Marines seven companies’ worth of M1 Abrams tanks are going to go away. “What we do not want to do was replicate what the Army is already very, very good at.”  

It’s not only immensely heavy tanks that will disappear. Other legacy platforms like heavy- and medium-helicopter squadrons and towed artillery are also on the chopping block. In addition, the plan calls for eliminating law enforcement units, bridging companies, three infantry battalions, and anti-aircraft units.

While he has previously questioned the need for the Navy’s requirement of 38 amphibious ships to haul Marines across the globe, Berger has promoted the idea of a new class of light amphibious warships, lightly crewed, to get smaller groups of Marines to the fight ashore without being such large targets.

The Navy’s fleet assessment, on hold until Esper’s office finishes its own review this summer, should include that new ship. 

Berger offered a bit of a preview, telling me during the roundtable, “you’ll see some significant changes” in the Navy report “regarding the portion of the fleet that supports maneuver of Marines and the expeditionary elements of that. They also see a pretty significant shift towards unmanned platforms, and where we need to go in that regard. There is a linkage between the two.”

While he didn’t elaborate, his comments suggest unmanned platforms could team with the new ships to screen approaches to beaches and provide surveillance and fire support if needed. 

In briefing slides presented to the defense industry last month, the Navy said it plans to begin buying the 200- 400 ft. Light Amphibious Warships  ships in 2023, and it is looking for mature commercial designs that can carry a crew of 30 and travel 3,500 nautical miles.

One of the biggest surprises in the 10-year force assessment the Marines issued was the open questioning of the role the F-35 might play in the Corps’ future. It called for a change in how many planes are contained in each F-35 squad, from 16 to 10. Current plans call for the Marines to buy 353 of the F-35B and 67 of the F-35C carrier variants. It’s unclear whether this is the beginning of a smaller official plan to buy F-35Bs.

Berger affirmed this week that “there’s nothing like” the F-35 anywhere in the world, but he needs more information about the long-term costs of the plane’s readiness and maintainability.

“If the maintenance readiness of the F-35 proves to be very, very strong, then of course, like any other system you need less of them because more of them are up all the time,” he said, but, “on the other hand, if it turns out not to be so, then you’re going to need more of them, to account for the ones that are in repair, that are down right now.”

He tried to assuage some concerns that he was looking to walk away from the Joint Strike Fighter program. “Right now, the program of record plows ahead as it is,” the general said. “But I’m signaling to the industry, we have to be prepared to adjust as the operating environment adjusts. Right now, the program of record stays the same, but we will,  we must, adapt to the adversary and we must adapt to the operating environment that we’re challenged with being in.”