The Future of Amphibious Operations -- Address to the Shenandoah Valley Marines

It is and honor for my wife Joanne and I to be here tonight with the Valley Marines to celebrate the birthday of the founding of the United States Marine Corps. Dan, thank you for inviting us to share this special event with both you and your bride tonight and making us feel at home among such an august and seasoned group of true warriors.

I have always had a great deal of respect and admiration for the Corps having served in four amphibious warfare ships, commanding two, and commanding an amphibious squadron of ships. While serving in Navy’s cruiser and destroyer force although it was fun screaming around the world’s oceans at thirty-one knots sending up a twenty-foot rooster tail in our wake, we were always just simulating this or that vice actually engaging Soviet submarines or conducting live missile shoots at hostile inbound aircraft. To the contrary, I found that in my time in the amphibious forces we were putting Marines ashore in harms way be it Somalia, Bosnia, or Kuwait. In other words, we had an actual real world vice “canned” missions to execute and at the end of the day although you may be exhausted you knew that the efforts of your Sailors and Marines really had meaningful impact and made a valuable difference in the world.

My first real experience with a Marine in uniform was soon after being sworn in as a 4th Class Midshipman at the University of Mississippi in the summer of 1970. Master Gunnery Sergeant Lexa who had just returned from Vietnam with multiple awards for bravery for combat against the Viet Cong as well as numerous purple hearts informed us that even though we as midshipmen outranked him, he was really the boss and that the Marine Corps at the time was the “Men’s Department” of the Department of the Navy. In short, we were just a bunch of young officers “want to bees” that he would shape in his own image and he was right! Many of the lessons he taught me on the drill field I carry till this day. God bless you Master Gunner Lexa, I suspect you are now in Heaven's scenes guarding the streets with fellow United States Marines.

I also had the honor of serving as a member of the pre commissioning crew of the USS Lewis B “Chesty” Puller (FFG 23) and through that experience came early in my Naval career to appreciate what it really means to be a United States Marine. In this role, I had the pleasure of meeting the Puller family and was in awe as a young Navy Lieutenant while walking through the Puller home in Saluda VA of a five times Navy Cross winner. It was an experience I will never forget and still sends shivers down my spine knowing I was standing on “Chesty’s” hallowed ground. As you know “Chesty” Puller commanded the 1st Marine Regiment where the 1st Marine Division was surrounded by Chinese and North Korean forces at the Chosin Reservoir, and he as was outnumbered at least eight to one. Some saw a crisis, but Chesty saw an opportunity to be able to attack in any direction and hit enemy forces. Only someone like “Chesty” Puller could find humor in a hopeless situation by saying to his troops “All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us…they can’t get away this time!”

Dan asked me this evening to discuss The Future of Amphibious Operations. Although I am by no means an expert and my experiences are somewhat dated as I retired for the Department of the Navy in 2016, I will try give it my best shot. 

Before doing so first a little Marine Corps history to remind us why the Corps is a unique and an irreplaceable branch of the United States military.

During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that “two Battalions of Marines be raised” for service as landing forces for the recently formed Continental Navy. The resolution, drafted by future U.S. President John Adams and adopted in Philadelphia created the Continental Marines and is now observed as the birth date of the United States Marine Corps.

Serving on land and at sea, the original U.S. Marines distinguished themselves in several important operations during the Revolutionary War. The first Marine landing on a hostile shore occurred when a force of Marines under Captain Samuel Nicholas captured New Province Island in the Bahamas from the British in March 1776. Nicholas was the first commissioned officer in the Continental Marines and is celebrated as the first Marine Commandant. After American independence was achieved in 1783, the Continental Navy was demobilized, and its Marines disbanded.

In the next decade, however, increasing conflict at sea with Revolutionary France led the U.S. Congress to establish formally the U.S. Navy in May 1798. Two months later, on July 11, President John Adams signed the bill establishing the U.S. Marine Corps as a permanent military force under the jurisdiction of the Department of Navy. U.S. Marines saw action in the so-called Quasi-War with France and then fought against the Barbary pirates of North Africa during the first years of the 19th century.

Since then, Marines have participated in all the wars of the United States and in most cases were the first soldiers to fight. Since its inception, Marines have executed more than 300 opposed landings on foreign shores. Places such as Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, the Chosin reservoir, Khe Sahn, Hue, Fallujah and countless other hell holes where only America’s best could triumph are stained with the blood of fallen marines. We should never forget the sacrifices they made to keep us free.

Unfortunately, after every major conflict there has been a move by those in the military (read U.S. Army) and Congress to disband the Corps stating it is no longer relevant or could be performed more economically other Services.

I am here tonight to tell you that there is a future in Amphibious Warfare and yes there will ALWAYS be a United States Marine Corps – America needs only the best combat expertise and dedication that only the Marine Corps can provide.

Before I launch into the presentation, I am not sure if you recently heard that a large group of ISIS fighters in Iraq are moving down a road, when they hear the voice of an American from behind a sand dune, “Hey you bastards! One Marine is better than ten wimpy ISIS fighters!” The ISIS commander quickly orders 10 of his best men over to the sand dune, where a gun battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes. After a minute of silence, the voice calls out again, “One Marine is better than one hundred of you ISIS scumbags!” Furious, the ISIS commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and a huge gun fight breaks out. After 10 minutes of battle, there is again silence, until the voice calls out again, “One Marine is better than a thousand ISIS fighters.” The enraged ISIS commander musters 1,000 fighters and sends them to the other side of the dune. Rifle fire, machine guns, grenades, rockets and cannon fire ring out as a terrible fight is fought … then silence. Eventually, one badly wounded ISIS fighter crawls back over the dune and with his dying words tells his commander, “Don’t send any more men … it’s a trap. There’s not just one marine over there…there’s two !!!!”

Now to the subject of tonight’s focus …

Unlike previous amphibious assaults, future amphibious operations will likely consist of thousands of disaggregated manned and unmanned surveillance boats, armor-carrying connectors, minesweepers, big-deck amphibs and small attack vessels operating in tandem

The concept is to configure a dispersed, yet “networked” fleet of next-generation connectors and other smaller boats launched from big-deck amphib “mother ships.” The larger host ships are intended to operate in a command and control capacity while bringing sensors such as drones, overhead surveillance assets, long-range missile and gun fires and 5th-generation air support to the fight.

The second U.S. Navy America-class big-deck amphib, the future USS Tripoli, has now completed builder's trials as a key step toward operational deployment. The Tripoli will carry an entire Marine Corps attack unit and be armed with our most advanced strike fighter the F-35B.

The future Tripoli will be the first large deck amphib to reach the fleet fully ready to integrate the Marine Corps air combat element to include Joint Strike Fighters. The first America-class amphib, the USS America, has been operational for a while.

The America-class amphibs are engineered to carry more F-35B Short-Take-Off-and-Landing Joint Strike Fighters, Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, CH-53 Super Stallions and UH-1Y Huey helicopters.

Designed as aviation-centric amphibs, the first two America class ships do not have well-deck for amphibious vehicles but rather are engineered with a larger hangar for aircraft, increased storage for parts and support equipment and additional aviation fuel capacity to support a higher operational tempo. The third America-class ship, the now under construction and LHA 8, will bring back the well deck.

Technical adjustments were made to the flight deck of the USS America to enable the ship to withstand the heat generated by the take-off and landing of the F-35B; these changes are also built into the USS Tripoli.

The flight deck modifications to the USS America and entailed adding additional structural members underneath flight deck landing spots numbers 7 and 9. These adjusted landing spots better enable closely timed cyclic flight operations without overstressing the flight deck.

The USS Tripoli is designed with the high-tech Navy ship-based computing network called Consolidated Afloat Network and Enterprise Services, or CANES. Overall, the USS Tripoli is 844-feet long and 106-feet wide with a weight of more than 44,000 tons. A fuel-efficient gas turbine propulsion system brings the ship’s speed up to more than 20 knots. The Tripoli is engineered to carry a Marine Expeditionary Unit or “MEU.”

America class ships are outfitted with robust a group of technologies called a Ship Self Defense System. This includes two Rolling Aircraft Missile launchers; two 20mm Phalanx Close in Weapons Systems (CIWS) mounts; and seven twin .50 cal. machine guns.

Since potential adversaries such as China now have longer-range weapons, better sensors, targeting technologies and computers with faster processing speeds, amphibious forces approaching the shore may need to disperse in order to make it harder for enemy forces to target them. Therefore, the notion of a disaggregated, yet interwoven attack force, less vulnerable to enemy fire, would be launched to hit “multiple landing points” to exploit enemy defenses.

New ships, such as future Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCAC), Unmanned Surface Vessels (USV), Amphibious Combat Vehicles, ship-launched undersea drones and even newly up-gunned Patrol Coastal boats, are expected to empower the emerging strategy to introduce a new, more effective and lethal “over-the-horizon ship-to-shore” attack ability.

Future LCAC replacements, such as the now-under-construction Textron-built Ship-to-Shore Connectors, are expected to figure prominently in these anticipated missions. They will introduce an unprecedented ability to transport 70-ton Abrams tanks to war and bring an integrated suite of new technologies to amphibious attack missions.

Execution of this new strategy is, depending upon the threat, also reliant upon 5th-generation aircraft. The F-35B, now operational as part of Marine Corps Air Ground Task Forces aboard the USS Wasp and USS Essex, is intended to provide close-air support to advancing attacks, use its sensors to perform forward reconnaissance and launch strikes itself. The success of a future amphibious attack requires, air supremacy. Extending this logic, an F-35 would be positioned to address enemy air-to-air and airborne air-to-surface threats such as drones, fighter jets or even incoming anti-ship missiles and ballistic missiles. The idea would be to use the F-35 in tandem with surveillance drones and other nodes to find and destroy land-based enemy defenses, clearing the way for a land assault.

The entire strategic and conceptual shift is also informed by an increased “sea-basing” focus. Smaller multi-mission vessels will be fortified by larger amphibs operating as sovereign entities at safer distances. These ships would operate as seaports, hospitals, logistics warehouses and sea-bases for maneuver forces.

A 2014 paper from the Marine Corps Association, the professional journal of the US Marine Corps, points to sea-basing as a foundation upon which the Navy will shift away from traditional amphibious warfare.

“Seabased operations enable Marines to conduct highly mobile, specialized, small unit, amphibious landings by stealth from over the horizon at multiple undefended locations of our own choosing.”

In effect, future “ship-to-shore” amphibious attacks will look nothing like the traditional linear, aggregated assault than we have seen in the past. A Naval War College essay on this topic both predicts and reinforces Coffman’s thinking.

“The basic requirements of amphibious assault, long held to be vital to success, may no longer be attainable. Unlike the Pacific landings of World War II amphibious objective areas could prove impossible to isolate,” the paper, called “Blitzkrieg from the Sea: Maneuver Warfare and Amphibious Operations,” states.

The essay, written in the 80s during the height of the Cold War, seems to anticipate future threats from major-power adversaries. Interestingly, drawing from some elements of a Cold War mentality, the essay foreshadows current “great-power” such as the emerging threat of China competition strategy for the Navy as it transitions from more than a decade of counterinsurgency where Marines fought in Iraq and Afghanistan to a new threat environment. In fact, when discussing its now-underway “distributed lethality” strategy, Navy leaders often refer to this need to return its focus upon heavily fortified littoral defenses and open, blue-water warfare against a near-peer adversary such as China.

The Naval War College essay also seems to anticipate modern thinking in that it cites LCACs as fundamental to amphibious warfare, writing that LCACs can “land at several points along an enemy coastline, seeking out enemy weaknesses and shifting forces.”

LCACs can access over 70-percent of the shoreline across the world, something the new Ship-to-Shore Connectors of SSCs will be able to do as well. Designed with over-the-horizon high-speed and maneuverability, LCACs can travel long distances and land on rocky terrain and drive up onto the shore. Referring to a more dispersed or disaggregated amphibious attack emphasis, the Naval War College essay describes modern attack through the lens of finding “surface gaps” to exploit as a way to bypass or avoid “centers of resistance.”

Dispersed approaches, using air-ground coordination and forward positioned surveillance nodes, can increasingly use synchronized assault tactics, pinpointing advantageous areas of attack. Not only can this, as the essay indicates, exploit enemy weakness, but it also brings the advantage of avoiding more condensed or closely configured approaches far more vulnerable to long-range enemy sensors and weapons. Having an SSC, which can bring a heavier load of land-attack firepower, weapons and Marines, helps enable this identified need to bring assault forces across a wide-range of attack locations. None of this, while intended to destroy technologically sophisticated enemies, removes major risks; Russian and Chinese weapons, including emerging 5th-generation fighters, DF-26 anti-ship missiles claimed to reach 900-miles and rapidly-emerging weapons such as drones, lasers and railguns are a variety of systems of concern.

The effort to integrate large numbers of multi-mission smaller craft, naturally hinges upon the continued development of vessels enabled by newer advanced technologies. Textron's upgraded Ship-to-Shore Craft includes lighter-weight composite materials, increased payload capacity, modernized engines and computer-automated controls. Also, SSC’s new Rolls Royce engines have more horsepower and specialized aluminum to help prevent corrosion. Textron engineers also say the SSC is built with digital flight controls and computer automation to replace the traditional yoke and pedals used by current connectors. As a result, on-board computers will quickly calculate relevant details such as wind speed and navigational information. Quite a difference from the landing craft such as a Mike 8 Boat of LCU you may have last stepped for in!

The Navy’s 72 existing LCACs, in service since the 80s, can only transport up to 60-tons, reach speeds of 36-knots and travel ranges up to 200 nautical miles from amphibious vehicles. The first several SSCs, which have been built and launched on the water, bring a new level of computer networking, combat-power transport technology and emerging elements of advanced maritime propulsion systems.

As part of this overall attack apparatus, the Corps is preparing to deploy new Amphibious Combat Vehicles or ACV by 2021. These would replace the aging fleet of AMTRACs that have been with us since Vietnam. By integrating a new, more powerful engine, large weapons and digitized Command and Control systems, the ACV is expected to bring new mechanized firepower to amphibious assaults.

In summary Valley Marines, yes, The Future of Amphibious Operations remains an evolving, bright, and an enduring one.  There are many battles yet to be fought and the Marine Corps will always lead the way.  Semper Fidelis Valley Marines and Happy Birthday!