The threat of national suicide will restrict a nation’s aggressive ambitions throughout the uncertain Seventies, as it is now doing in the uneasy Sixties. Thus, the major powers will continue to imply the use of one form of power—and employ quite another. In their threats they will hint, subtly or boldly, of a “total destruction” capability; in actual conflict, they will employ less lethal measures.
If this thesis is correct—and if it isn’t, there won’t be any future to speculate upon—the conventional wars of the Forties, the limited wars of the Fifties, and the brushfire wars of the Sixties, all were but a prelude to another as-yet-unnamed, but equally appalling, form of warfare.
Although it is not inevitable that such wars must mar the Seventies, it is at least conceivable. Let us, for this discussion, assume that such conflicts will occur. The most probable enemy, the one Marines must be best prepared to fight, will be a Satellite or “volunteer” force, in some image of its master. In his most formidable form he will be a regular from a great Power disguised as a volunteer. Where are we most likely to face this foe in the Seventies? Marines must be ready to close with the enemy in any area on the globe approachable from the sea.
The types of missions will range from a show of force to commitment in a major action of high violence. Like his counterpart of today, the Marine of the Future, in the words of our present Commandant, “ . . . will be maintained in the highest attainable state of readiness for quick-reaction employment.” This readiness posture, or responsiveness, will characterize the Marine in the next decade as much as does the globe and anchor insignia. No matter how differently he may be organized, trained, and equipped; whether it be for a matter-of-fact show of force role, or for the opening gun of Armageddon, our Marine will be ready when the whistle blows.
All of this means that the Marine Corps must have an impressive capability in formalized warfare against major enemies. But what about unconventional operations; war against the silent, stabbing, insidious guerrillas so prevalent in the Sixties? The Marine of the Future will have profited by the lessons of similar operations extending from the Forties through the Sixties. Down-to-earth, logical and practical solutions, will have furnished a broad conceptual foundation, and a body of effective technique and doctrine.
More significantly, by the Seventies, the so-called “wars of national liberation” will have become commonplace. The United States, along with the rest of the Free World, will have learned to mount fully co-ordinated, massive, political /social / economic /military offensives to snuff out those counterinsurgency blazes still smoldering. The newly independent nations, having gained stability and maturity, will have become less susceptible to sloganizing blandishments. The main emphasis, then, will be on prophylactic measures to penetrate to the seat of infections, and prevent them from assuming epidemic proportions.
Organizational flexibility, a high order of battlefield mobility, improved equipment, and advanced command and control procedures, including intelligence and communications, will serve to make counterinsurgency type operations an almost secondary capability in a broad spectrum of Marine Corps capabilities.
Looking now beyond counterinsurgency fighting, and taking into account the statutory and traditional responsibilities of Marine Corps combat forces, it is now possible to derive a basic setting for operations of future Marine Corps forces. They will have a maximum operational capability for amphibious operations with conventional weapons in limited wars, while possessing a supplementary capability for operations involving the use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
The Marine Corps of the Future, as that of today, will conduct its operations as a closely- knit air-ground team. For the sake of simplicity, this air-ground team will be described in terms of a Marine division and a Marine aircraft wing team, or Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF).
Let us begin by putting some dimensions on the landward extension of the amphibious battlefield. A logical capability of each division-wing MEF will be to seize and defend a maximum area of 600 square miles in conventional amphibious operations against a Satellite or “volunteer force.” Obviously, this is a larger area than has been normal in conventional operations of the post-World War II era and, indeed, probably will remain a maximum area even in the Seventies. This 600 square miles takes an optimistic view as to range, accuracy and volume of fire to be achieved by conventional weapons, and of the mobility of the landing force.
Vertical envelopment operations will be conducted at ranges up to 50 miles beyond the limits of the beachhead area. Our MEF will require early warning and protection against reacting enemy ground forces. A coordinated air-ground reconnaissance and surveillance of up to 300 miles must be established and, whatever the cost, maintained.
While 600 square miles will be the maximum beachhead area for a division-wing force in limited, conventional war, a larger beachhead of up to 2,500 square miles may be required for nuclear war. This huge area will be required for the dispersal of surface and air mobile elements of the MEF when the threat of nuclear attack is imminent.
High on the list of capabilities of the Navy- Marine team of the future will be strategic mobility—rapidly embarking, transporting, and debarking troops and equipment in the amphibious assault. The principal reliance for strategic movement will be placed on amphibious shipping capable of sustained speeds compatible with the swiftest elements of the striking fleet. Carrier deck space will continue to be required for the operations of Marine combat aircraft in the amphibious assault where nearby land bases are not otherwise available. Long-range assault transport aircraft will provide mobility for command and control elements, the timely deployment of battalion landing teams (BLT), and for emergency reinforcement or resupply.
The preparation of the objective area will remain fundamentally the same; emphasis will be on the destruction of defenses ashore, including the neutralization of potential helicopter landing zones. Since air support of ground troops is vital, we must counter the enemy surface-to-air missile threat in order to provide an environment in which support aircraft can operate effectively.
In the ship-to-shore movement, emphasis will be placed on exploiting the inherent advantages of tactical air transport in the ship-to-shore movement, as well as subsequent operations ashore. High-speed, helicopter- borne landing forces, in co-ordination with surface landing elements, will strike simultaneously the flanks and rear of important beach defenses and terrain features dominating routes into and within the beachhead.
The landing attack will be characterized by the concentration of combat power at selected points in the enemy’s defense system. The flexibility and mobility of helicopters and amphibious vehicles will be exploited to gain initial position advantage over defending hostile forces. Sea-based combat support, surface and air, will be directed at targets whose immediate suppression is imperative if we are to retain the momentum of the attack.
MEF assault elements not landed by helicopters or amphibious vehicles, as well as heavy combat and support units, will be projected ashore by high-speed landing craft or landing ships. It will be the Landing Force Commander’s option whether these elements will operate as surface mobile task teams during subsequent tactical maneuvers, or perform their intended combat support function.
Operations ashore will continue to be characterized by fire teams and squads employing fire and maneuver, supported by air and ground units. These units must seize, occupy, and defend ground objectives.
Tactical movement on the battlefield will be by helicopters and amphibious vehicles, supplemented by helicopter-transportable ground vehicles. Marines will continue to fight dismounted, but emphasis will be placed on maximum tactical mobility and flexibility.
Marine infantry will get fire support from ships’ guns, rockets, guided missiles, attack aircraft, and artillery. Offshore the Navy will provide neutralization and destruction fires on landing beaches and adjacent areas—to clear helicopter approach routes and landing zones inland—and general support fires, up to the maximum ranges at which our combat forces will operate.
Combat air support will be employed essentially as it is today, but it will supplement naval gunfire in clearing helicopter routes, neutralizing landing zones, and providing escort for the helicopter movement of troops and equipment. Navy and Marine carrier- based attack aircraft will sustain this mission until MEF combat air elements are established ashore. The Marine attack aircraft will conduct interdictory and other offensive-type operations at distances up to 300 nautical miles from the limits of the beachhead.
Direct support artillery will accompany surface and helicopter-landed elements to provide the high volume, rapid response, fires required. Heavy artillery, with its increased ranges and greater destructive power, will be employed to reinforce direct support artillery, provide counter-battery fires, and engage deep targets.
These guns will be firing motor rocket- boosted projectiles through rifled barrels. They will have deadly accuracy and will have twice the range of present artillery with no increase in caliber.
Obviously, enemy manned aircraft and the missile threat will be the determining factors of the antiair warfare needs. The MEF antiair warfare system will be a landward extension of the amphibious task force air defense system, which, in turn, may be part of a regional or theater air defense system. Our surveillance and detection should extend to about 450 nautical miles. High performance intercept aircraft and long-range air-to-air missiles will provide the kill component beyond the beachhead. Surface-to-air missiles will take over against enemy aircraft and missiles which penetrate to the beachhead.
The MEF commander will serve as landing force commander, and will direct, control, and co-ordinate the efforts of the entire MEF, subject to the normal command relationships prescribed in amphibious doctrine. His command and control functions will be characterized by:
(1) A single operations center at each level of command.
(2) The use of digital messages.
(3) Mission type orders.
(4) Standard Operating Procedures which anticipate required action in a wide variety of tactical situations.
Operationally, this emphasis on conventional war really means acceptance of the constraints on damage imposed by non-nuclear weapons. But this does not—repeat not—mean returning to the battlefield of World War IE New dimensions of mobility and improved weapons with increased fire power will open up the battlefield as the forward pass opened up the game of football. Mass firepower and shock action will compensate for the destructive power of the nuclear weapon, which Marine planners will be prepared to forego, but not to rule out. In so doing, the use of air mobility will be exploited in the objective area. Infantry and close support artillery units will be light enough to be moved by VTOL transport whenever a tactical advantage may be gained. The capability for over-all massing of combat units, supporting fires and the ready reinforcement of combat units with heavier, non- air transportable weapons will be maintained. This operational concept of future operations will, in effect, constitute a dramatic extension of current capabilities.
A great deal of our materiel will be as light and compact as possible consistent with the ability to perform its assigned function. The development of essential combat equipment is not being inhibited by artificial limits on weight or portability. But there are, obviously, limits to miniaturization; all equipment of the Marine division of the future need not necessarily be air portable.
While the Marine Corps has no reason for developing and launching its own space vehicles, it is interested in the uses and applications to which they will be put. Communications, weather information and position location are a few of the applications of outer space which have an important bearing on the tactical problems of the Marine Corps of the Seventies.
It is already possible to visualize how space vehicles mounting diversified sensors and relay equipment will be able to serve a variety of “customers” as they make their orbits over respective areas of interest.
Weather satellites, for example, will serve all the armed forces as well as non-military customers. A Marine landing force will thus be kept up to the minute on the weather situation. Long-range communications relayed through space vehicles will enable our reconnaissance teams to transmit reliably over extended distances.
For tactical mobility on the battlefield, our Marine of the Future will be furnished several families of equipment including ground vehicles and VTOL transport. All ground vehicles will possess a greater cross-country mobility than any currently in use. These vehicles will range from smaller vehicles, designed to reduce the load of the individual infantryman—simply emphasizing that the Marine of the Future will still do most of his fighting afoot—to personnel carriers, prime movers and logistics carriers.
In the VTOL category he will be provided with light, command-reconnaissance types, medium assault transports, and heavy assault transports. The principal need here is for adequate lift capability under all operating conditions. The adequate lift capability, even under conditions of extreme humidity, will be maintained through the use of turbojet engines.
His amphibious vehicles will be provided in two types—assault and support. The assault amphibian will be much lighter, more agile, and faster than today’s. Significantly, it will perform an armored personnel carrier role once the surface landed assault forces are ashore. The support amphibian, on the other hand, will provide high speed delivery of follow-on supplies and equipment from ship to using unit or supply point ashore. It may take one of several forms, either hydrofoil, planning hull, or a ground effects machine.
Since there is no substitute for firepower, the requirement for improved conventional weapons will assume even greater importance. New weapons must be of greater range, more easily moved and possess greater killing power.
For close combat the Marine infantrymen will wear extremely lightweight body armor and his main weapon will be a high-velocity, small-caliber rifle. It will weigh slightly over five pounds and fire single shots, bursts, or be fully automatic. The most unusual aspect of this weapon is that it will have both point and area-fire capabilities. A solid round of ammunition will be provided for the point fire and an explosive round, with approximately the lethality of the present hand grenade, will furnish the area coverage.
His side arm will weigh less than a pound, will be effective out to at least 100 yards, and the Marine will be able to fire it from his shoulder, hip, or from his extended hand. A detachable stock will give it the shoulder-fire versatility.
Multi-purpose support weapons—capable of both high-angle fire to get over ridges, or flat-projectory fire for bunker-busting missions—will replace the mortar, and flame weapons will finally become truly portable.
There will be no flares used in the night fighting of the Seventies. By that time, image intensification devices will be common. They may take the form of a TV screen or be as simple as a pair of sunglasses. These devices will intensify ambient light—even as little as that from a single star—so that to the viewer, the area will be as light as day.
Tanks, providing greater firepower, heightened protection, lower silhouettes, and of greater agility and lighter weight, will be available for mobile armored assault fires, and for maximum antitank defense.
Rocket-boosted projectiles will have wide application in such areas as close and general support artillery and naval ship-based weapons. Ship-launched guided missiles are needed for support of helicopter-borne landing forces out to extreme ranges of 75 miles inland. Other ship-based weapons must provide short- range fires for beach neutralization and medium range fires for general support up to 20 miles inland. For these longer ranges, naval shore fire support, as well as general support artillery, must have accurate target location as well as accurate delivery.
Attack aviation will consist of a family of attack/reconnaissance aircraft ranging from a light, armed, reconnaissance aircraft to all- weather VTOL attack aircraft. The light, armed reconnaissance airplane will be simple, easily maintained, and capable of operating from short undeveloped landing strips. The SATS will have become obsolete. The aircraft will carry either ordnance or simple sensor devices. It will be highly expeditionary, and will be the aircraft for battlefield surveillance, helicopter escort, close air support against light opposition gunfire spotting, and surface launched missile control.
The other member of the family of combat aircraft will be an all-weather VTOL, high performance fighter. This aircraft will be capable of meeting the enemy on equal terms any place, any time. A special high-speed, multi-sensor reconnaissance version will perform reconnaissance deep in enemy territory.
To achieve effective command and control, reliable and rapid communications must be established. In spite of the promise of “battlefield TV,” radio will continue as the best solution to the communications problem. Multiple channels superimposed on single circuits will flow through a single operations center at each level of command from BTL on up. Rapid transmission of digital data messages will replace voice messages.
Since the areas to be covered by reconnaissance and surveillance will be much larger than any known in previous wars, the ever-haunting problem of finding and fixing the enemy will be even tougher. To assist us, families of intelligence equipment will be provided to insure all-weather, day and night surveillance information collection, and processing. This intelligence equipment will be appropriate to the tactical levels at which used, in terms of size, weight, complexity and utility. As an essential prelude to the amphibious assault, pre D-Day reconnaissance will be accomplished by small reconnaissance groups, introduced and retrieved by the Navy, operating at great distance from the approaching amphibious task force and, if need be, deep in enemy territory.
There has never been a lack of information. But there has been the problem of accumulating, sorting and interpreting this information in time to make a decision that will affect the tactical situation. The tedious chores of the intelligence groups will be performed by the data processing system, in the future.
Sketches, made in the field by reconnaissance teams will be transmitted immediately to headquarters through the use of portable facsimile machines. Some of these machines are now operational.
Although a future enemy will be equipped with both manned aircraft and missiles, perhaps the more critical threat will be posed by his missiles—the tactical range type rather than intercontinental. This means that our Marine of the Future should have an expeditionary-type antimissile capability.
The manned aircraft threat will be met by a mix of missile-carrying, all-weather fighters and surface-to-air missiles.
The rapid response of our air defense means will be accomplished through an instantaneous data handling system with the capability of rapid weapon assignment involving large numbers of aircraft and missiles in the same air space. This system necessarily must integrate and be fully compatible with the amphibious task force tactical data system.
Automatic data processing will also play an important role in the logistic system, since the command and control of supply and distribution operations will involve a tremendous mass of record-keeping and thousands of line items. The supply and distribution system will assure improved responsiveness, reliability, and at the same time possess a degree of mobility equal to that of the combat forces being supported. The integration of packaging, materials handling and transportation will provide a smooth flow of supplies and equipment.
The logistic support system of our Marine landing forces will place great dependence on direct supply from source to using unit. For the amphibious assault this means placing initial reliance on direct supply from ship to using unit, in or beyond the beachhead, employing the best choice of available VTOL transport, amphibious vehicles, or ground vehicle delivery from beached landing craft and ships. In terms of concept, this will require a mobile seaborne logistic system having many features of the Navy’s highly developed underway-replenishment system.
Intelligence, as a tool of decision making, will have been refined by new techniques in information gathering, but the main emphasis will be on the more rapid and accurate processing and dissemination means. Planning, for either future or day-to-day operations, will be facilitated by having instantaneously available and readily presentable a complete and up-to-the-minute picture of the enemy, terrain, and weather for the commander and his staff.
Staff organization and procedures will be streamlined, and along with various automated aids, will permit the commander to be kept abreast of a greater variety of complex situations than ever before. This, along with improved intelligence and communications, will permit the commander to make rapid decisions, translate these decisions into simple, readily understandable plans, and transmit them reliably and rapidly to his tactical units.
Organizationally it may be difficult to perceive any great changes in Marine Corps forces of the Seventies. The basic fire team of four men will still be there, the rifle squad will still have three fire teams, the rifle platoon three squads, the division will have its mix of infantry regiments and support units, and the wing will still be comprised of the aircraft and associated aviation elements. One will have to look deeper than superficial structure. The significant changes will be found largely in the greatly improved weapons and other equipment in these combat proven organizations. Some numbers of things will change. For example, there will be many more helicopters, or even more advanced VTOL transports. On the other hand, there will be less fighter aircraft but these planes will be more powerful and effective.
Thus the major combat units, the division and wing, will look much the same in over-all structure. But they will be geared to provide any size force, up to division-wing team, task organized to fit the mission. And most importantly they will have greatly increased and versatile capabilities.
The Marine of 1973 will be a formidable adversary. His organization will be flexible, readily lending itself to being task organized to meet a variety of combat situations. His weapons will be lighter and more effective in terms of accuracy and lethality. Vehicles, both air and surface, will permit him to attain a tactical flexibility which will allow him to dominate the battlefield by a combination of maneuver and fire which will baffle and destroy before his enemy can respond. Electronic, acoustic, seismic, and light intensification devices will provide the surveillance and early warning to prevent tactical surprise. Along with the hard, sharp cutting edge presented by highly trained, mobile, well equipped and supplied Marine air-ground teams, heightened command and control means will combine to assure the United States and the U. S. Navy of a truly effective means of implementing national security policy.
Although the external packaging of the U. S. Marine Corps’ chief “weapons system” —the individual combat Marine—will reflect the changes imposed by the conditions of the Seventies, every effort will be made to insure that the basic characteristics of its main component remain unchanged. Dedication, courage, initiative, imagination, discipline, leadership, and esprit de corps will continue to constitute the fundamental ingredients of our immutable weapon system.