I
For a number of years after World War I, the most respected military opinion in this country and in England held that there would be no need for amphibious operations in a future war. War offices on both sides of the Atlantic consistently deprecated suggestions that such operations were probable.
Fortunately there were in both countries a few officers who refused to accept these views and who were determined to investigate the ramified problem of the assault from the sea. One such group at the Marine Corps Schools in Quantico, Virginia, was in the 1930’s carrying on theoretical investigations on the basis of which a tentative doctrine, later to be accepted, was being developed. Even before this time a few British officers at the Staff Colleges had, in spite of the apathy of the War Office and the Admiralty, begun to speculate about probable amphibious requirements in a future war in which England might become involved. But they were handicapped, as were our own pioneers to be a few years later, by general acceptance of the prevailing dogma that there would be no need to conduct such operations. These “visionaries,” engrossed with the future rather than the past, saw clearly what others either failed to see or refused to recognize, and it was due entirely to their persistency that there was published in the early 1920s the first Manual of Combined Operations. This antedated by some years a similar tentative manual put together at the Marine Corps Schools.
Thus, there were many years that would have been totally wasted as far as amphibious development was concerned if it had not been for the determination of several relatively small groups on both sides of the ocean who worked out the theories of assault from the sea. Without these theories the last war could not have been won.
Today there are officers whose achievements and positions entitle them to speak with some authority who say that there will be no need for major amphibious operations in a future war. This unoriginal hypothesis is accepted by those who permit apathy, sentiment or service jealousy to obscure their critical vision. But an objective appraisal of the existing situation can only lead to the opposite conclusion, for the international political scene, the immutable facts of geography and the industrial and technological capabilities of the major states all indicate the probability that we will be required to execute such operations in a future war.
We are not prepared as we should be because both our amphibious doctrine and equipment are relevant to conditions that were entirely different from those that exist today or will exist tomorrow. The fact that both doctrine and equipment were proved effective in World War II does not mean that they will be equally effective in World War III, if it comes, for that war will be fought under radically different circumstances from those of the last one. Since the time when those doctrines were “proven” they have been outmoded, for new weapons and devices have created a framework that renders “conventional military practice obsolete,”
II
There are other factors than technical relevance to the present and future that indicate a re-examination of the doctrinal basis of amphibious operations to be in order. The nature of World War II and the character and capabilities of the enemies we engaged, particularly the Pacific enemy, had a great deal to do with the sort of doctrine that was developed, and that was successful in overcoming them.
In the Pacific, the Army and Marines fought and vanquished a second rate military organization. The circumstances under which we were required to fight the Japanese made them appear to be more expert than they really were. As individual soldiers and even as small unit fighters, they were probably unequalled in courage and tenacity. But the Japanese Army was a distinctly inferior military instrument.
Commandwise and technologically the Japanese were in the third grade; we were in high school. Japanese commanders lacked imagination and were inflexible. They were persistent, but persistency may be (and often was) pushed to the point of folly. The Japanese had good cannon; fortunately for us the techniques of modern artillery were beyond their comprehension. Their conception of modern battle communications was undeveloped; their combat medical services were utterly inadequate. Their mining techniques were primitive, their tanks poor. One could go on like this for several pages; there is actually no need to do so, for an examination of every aspect of the situation we faced in the Pacific only serves more firmly to establish the fact that the Japanese Army was a second rate fighting machine. General von Falkenhausen, Chief of the German Mission to China in 1937, classed it as third rate. In order to salve our vanity we will insist that it had progressed one notch between that year and August of 1945.
The peculiar physical circumstances under which we encountered and defeated the Japanese are of particular interest, for they affected existing doctrine in a decisive manner. The war in the Pacific was essentially an island war, fought by an ascendant sea power against one which was progressively breaking to pieces. The surface and air fleets of the strong sea power were able to isolate selected objective areas and to keep them isolated from effective reinforcement not only for hours and days, but, if necessary, for weeks and months. The reduction of island fortresses demanded concentration of forces, for there usually were only certain approaches, as well known to the defenders as to the attackers, that were feasible as avenues of assault. The characteristics of Pacific combat thus inevitably produced a doctrine that called for a relatively slow moving, highly concentrated, tightly controlled assault organization.
The amphibious doctrine that was applied in Europe differed in no fundamental respect from that which was found successful in the Pacific Theatre. Here there was more effort to gain surprise, and extensive preliminary operations were usually omitted. This was sensible, for in Europe the reinforcing capability of the enemy always had to be taken into account. However, when we engaged the German armies in Normandy, we came up against a mortally wounded enemy, a number of whose best divisions had been destroyed in Russia, whose air force was impotent, and whose command morale was terribly shaken.
The question thus naturally arises as to whether or not amphibious doctrine based on the experiences of the last war may be regarded as valid for today and tomorrow. I do not believe that it may be. It is oriented tactically and technically to the past and not the future, to peculiar geographical circumstances that will not again be repeated, and to the character and capabilities of one second class enemy and one first class but mortally wounded enemy. However, it is this doctrine that we teach and that we practice, and that a great number of people seem to regard as graven upon tablets of stone. If it is indeed engraved upon stone, it would appear to me to be engraved upon a tombstone, and it should not require too much effort to figure out whose tombstone it is.
III
This becomes clear if we project an operation conducted in accordance with current doctrine and equipment against the scenery in which we may expect to find this first class enemy of the future. This enemy will be as well aware of the decisive character of amphibious operations as we are, and he will make every effort to break up an amphibious armada before it reaches possible objective areas. His first weapon will be the new submarine with its greatly improved torpedoes. He will realize, too, that the amphibious shipping is the core of the expedition, and he will concentrate all submarine efforts to destroy as much of it as possible. When what is left of the convoy gets within range, all- weather aircraft will attack it under low visibility conditions with air-to-surface homing missiles and torpedoes. Pre D-day operations will have alerted the enemy as to the area marked by us, and when the ponderous mass of amphibious shipping gets into the final approach phase and enters the objective area he can really have a field day. The APA, AKA, LSD and LST are large, slow, vulnerable and eminently juicy targets. One can almost hear the enemy making that “slurp” noise that children make when they contemplate a banana split.
If there is a ship to shore movement, concentration against a restricted beach area confines it to a rigid pattern which will be easy to disrupt with available weapons. Homing missiles with proximity fuzes and shallow water mines of all descriptions should do the trick.
Some troops will get ashore in spite of all this, in spite of beach mines, and of missiles riding in to the beaches on small directional guidance sets that preliminary bombardment has not destroyed. After dark on D-day they will meet tank attacks accompanied by extensive infiltration. Heavy attacks by all- weather aircraft with an armament loading of homing torpedoes and rockets will be made on the transport areas. Guided to the targets by the flames of the burning ships, a flight of long-range, high-flying bombers may drop two atomic bombs into the transport area, one fuzed for an air burst, one for a water burst. Have we had it? And the enemy has not even committed his reserve.
There is nothing fantastic about this picture. We must expect that atomic bombs will be used against tactically worthwhile targets, and certainly an amphibious force attempting to land half-a-dozen assault divisions in a strategically important area is such a target. Its destruction would amply justify the use of two or even more A-bombs. As to the other weapons, they have existed in reliable state since 1945. The only thing fantastic about their use as described here is that 1955 capabilities have not been assigned them.
It is clear that changed conditions require the Navy and Marine Corps to produce some new theories for the amphibious operation. Unfortunately most Naval and Marine Officers regard those who are addicted to the practice of “theorizing” as a bit queer. There are many good operators in the Navy and Marine Corps, but of theorizers there has been a scarcity since the days of Alfred Thayer Mahan. It is entirely possible that the treatment accorded that gentleman, the best example in our history of a prophet without honor, has had something to do with this! Officers do not want to be known as “theorizers,” for a certain stigma attaches to the word. They much prefer to be known as “good practical” soldiers, sailors, or marines. And this is perhaps reasonable, for the custodians of ancient rituals are quick to brand as “unsound” those who venture to suggest that a re-examination of the bases of doctrine is in order.
IV
The new weapons will not permit assault forces to be thrown as they were in the past against the restricted beach areas considered most suitable for landing. Assault troops will have to be landed over a broad front. In order to insure ability to concentrate rapidly after landing, troop groupings will have to have a high degree of mobility ashore. Assault Combat Croups (ACG) will have to be self-contained; that is, they will have to be so armed and equipped that they can sustain action for a limited period. They must have their own tanks, self-propelled lightly armored personnel carriers, and artillery of the recoilless type; they must have light mobile weapons firing shaped charges for anti-tank defense, they must be able to lay small defensive mine fields. In other words, they must have readily available the organic means to permit them to “dish it out” and to “take it,” if they have to. Speed and striking power must be the basic criteria. The strength, organization, and equipment of such a group could be ultimately determined only by test, but a strength of some 400-600 officers and men seems feasible as a point of departure. The number of such groupings that would comprise a regiment and the number of regiments in a division could be established theoretically and modified as practical field maneuvers indicated. All equipment except the heavier tanks, engineer machinery and artillery of the larger calibers should be air transportable.
Fifteen to twenty such groups drawn from two or more divisions might land simultaneously in assault over a front of from thirty to fifty miles. These groups will be sufficiently mobile to pass speedily across beach zones, to seize key terrain localities and to concentrate rapidly. They will be assisted by airborne and ’copter-borne troops which may be landed before them, with them, or after them. This type of landing features rapidity of execution, dispersion of seaborne forces with improved ability to concentrate ashore speedily, the utmost flexibility in the commitment of seaborne and airborne reserves, and provides a solution to dispersion of logistical installations, both afloat and ashore.
It is a landing operation similar to this that the new weapons seem to impose. To meet the requirements we need new assault organizations, new equipment and new types of assault and support ships and craft.
At the present time we have a collection of amphibious vessels many of which were anachronisms in the last war, when the two most important types were dubbed by some one with a sense of humor “Assault Transports” and “Assault Cargo Ships.” These venerable and honored craft served their purposes in the 1940s, but in the day of the fast new submarine, long range homing torpedoes and guided missiles, they can not serve any useful purpose in the initial phase of an assault from the sea. Their very presence would jeopardize the entire operation and contribute to the rapid liquidation of the investment in lives, time, energy, skills, and equipment which it represents.
An assault ship suitable for the type of landing suggested would be capable of speeds of the order of 30-40 knots and of carrying in a reasonable degree of comfort the troops that compose an assault group, their equipment, organic weapons, and at least three days’ essential supply. The ship would be able to carry the craft or vehicles necessary to land the group, with its weapons, prepared to enter three days of sustained combat. Speed in unloading is essential and this requirement indicates a ship that can discharge at sea simultaneously from both sides or from both ends, so that in a maximum of two “shots”—say forty minutes—it can be completely unloaded and ready for withdrawal at high speed. There is nothing new about this design—the Japanese had such a ship as long ago as 1937, though it was very slow.
With troop carrying landing craft or vehicles capable of water speeds of thirty to forty knots when fully loaded, the line of departure may be thirty miles to sea, out of reach of any shore-based artillery except that firing long range guided missiles.
To provide gunfire in close support of such an operation, small high-speed missile ships would be required. Terminal guidance for ship-projected missiles could be furnished by gunfire liaison teams organic to ACGs. It is unlikely that such ships would be necessary after D plus two or three day. Certainly they would not be if follow-up formations and weapons got in and shore-based air was promptly emplaced.
The pattern of an assault landing made over a front of thirty to fifty miles makes advance force operations unnecessary and the fact that they compromise surprise renders them extremely undesirable. The enemy cannot mine everywhere, he cannot construct offshore obstacles everywhere, and his defenses cannot command in strength all beaches suitable for landing. While it is certain that with no preliminary clearance operations some of the ACGs will run into serious difficulties, it is reasonable to believe that others will not, and it is behind these that second and third echelons must be landed and reserves of seaborne and airborne troops rapidly committed.
No mention has been made of preliminary or supporting air operations or air defense. Let us briefly consider the latter first. CAPs of all types—high, medium, low, radar picket, etc.—will have to be provided. AEW aircraft operating in carefully defined sectors well beyond the range of sea going surface or submarine pickets will be essential. On-deck jet interceptors operating from carriers one hundred miles at sea will be able to reinforce CAPs rapidly. Flak ships of high speed and great maneuverability will provide AA protection with surface-to-air missiles. The close air support picture is confused at the present time for a variety of technical reasons that need not be examined here, but it is apparent that air must be available to ACGs on call of their organic liaison teams, and that the type of aircraft must be capable of effective close support.
In a landing of the type projected the logistics picture is much different from that to which we are accustomed. In the first place there will not be a great build-up in any one area at an early stage. Logistical installations will have to be dispersed for some time; only after a deep beachhead is established will heavy build-up begin. It would be dangerous during the first phase of an operation of the future to rely on securing or being able to use an established port. A Cherbourg might have its place, but for some time supply will have to be over the beaches by an improved type of LST, by other shallow draft ships and craft, and by airborne means, including cargo sea planes. Since the real key to the success of the operation is to be found in the way logistics are planned and handled, this aspect will have to be minutely analyzed. Follow-up, which is more important than the assault phase, will have to be accomplished by carefully planned and continuous echelonment of combat and service organizations, supplies, and equipment into the beachhead through seaborne regulating stations. The most serious logistical problem of all is the delivery of petroleum products to the users.
A great deal must be accomplished by the combat troops and their commanders to assist in the solution of the logistical problems. Some of the fat must be taken off the administrative tail that is wagging the combat dog. The only way to do this is to plan now for a dog that is a lot leaner and tougher than he was in the last war.
V
New problems cannot be solved by applying to them solutions that were found satisfactory in other times and in other circumstances. And to continue to teach old solutions to old problems is indeed sterile. Refinements of the techniques of the past are not enough. New techniques must be developed. A challenge similar to this was recognized and met by the Marine Corps and the Navy between the first and second World Wars. Is it going to be recognized and met now?
Major amphibious operations represent staggering investments in men and material, in energy (mental, nervous, and physical), and in time. For this reason they cannot be lightly undertaken. Compelling strategic requirements must in the future dictate any decision to embark on a venture of this sort. It may be doubted if this held true in the last war. Examination of our operations indicates that some of them probably need not have been executed at all, and that others might at least have been postponed or radically altered in deference to requirements that were more pressing in other directions. These factors must receive more attention on the highest levels in the next war than they did in the last one.
But no matter how excellent the strategic decisions, a war can be lost on the operational level. A war can be lost because of faulty doctrine, and certainly doctrine that is based largely on circumstances that will not be repeated is faulty.
It is true that at the beginning of the next war we may have to use some of the weapons of the last one. But to enter a future combat equipped with the theories of a past one will be worse than dangerous. As Bertrand Russell wrote in Power: “Insistence on doctrinal uniformity is ultimately fatal to military efficiency in a scientific age.” It is the obligation of the Navy and Marine Corps to encourage departures from the beaten track and to insist, not on rigid adherence to doctrine that history has outmoded, but on new approaches. What we need in the amphibious field is a few heretics. We cannot afford to wait too long for their emergence.