Marine Corps logistics training is not keeping pace with the rapid changes in warfare. Outdated publications and mission-essential tasks are hindering the maturation of the expeditionary advanced base operations concept. Marine Corps logistics units are still not ready for a peer adversary fight. The air domain will test logistics units’ ability to hide in plain sight. If found, the units will need to employ unconventional defensive measures and tactics for survival.
Two Historical Battles
In 53 BCE, the Parthians decimated the Romans at the Battle of Carrhae. The Parthians were well prepared for battle and had stockpiled an almost endless supply of arrows. The Romans were not accustomed to the terrain or weather, and their superior numbers, strength, and legacy were still not enough against their adversary. The Romans were negligent in their preparation and ignorant in their fighting. The Parthians’ sophisticated logistics supply chain allowed them to surround Rome’s defenses and saturated the sky with arrows.
More than 2,000 years later, Azerbaijan soundly defeated Armenia in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war.1 On
the morning of 27 September 2020, while the rest of the world was dealing with a global pandemic, Azerbaijan eliminated more than 50 percent of Armenia’s antiaircraft forces and 40 percent of its artillery in just 20 minutes. Human-operated and fully autonomous drones rained down hellfire from the sky as the Armenians scrambled to get their troops organized. The Armenians took to the mountains, where they dug in and remained confident on the high ground, but they soon realized how poor their preparations were; the aerial threats seemed endless.
While Azerbaijan and the Parthians were by most measures inferior, they both studied their enemy and defeated a superior force. The Armenians and the Romans underestimated their opponents, and it cost each dearly. Neither had expected the aerial threats with which they dealt. The Marine Corps must learn from these wars. They offer many lessons for military planners, but most important is the need for good masking and signature management for logistics units. If these units cannot effectively mask their signatures against aerial threats, they cannot supply ground forces.
Hiders
Masking is a full-spectrum multidomain effort to deceive enemy sensors and targeting cycles. Signature management is an integrated process of tailoring how the force appears to the adversary across all domains—including in the electromagnetic spectrum and information environment—by countering the adversary’s intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting capabilities or misleading enemy decision-makers.
Survivability on the battlefield is crucial, and masking makes unmanned aerial systems hard to locate and destroy. Logistics units in the enemy’s weapons engagement zone will likely be sensed, targeted, and rapidly destroyed by long-range precision fires and seek-and-destroy drone swarms. The air domain will be contested, so logisticians must find ways to mask logistics and command-and-control signatures on the ground.
The Azerbaijan forces used human-in-the-loop, human-on-the-loop, and human-out-of-the-loop drones to hunt and kill the Armenian forces. These systems of drones are rapidly evolving. Human-out-of-the-loop (autonomous) drones are becoming a real threat for the Ukrainian and Israeli forces in their current conflicts. A human-out-of-the-loop drone or drone swarm allows the enemy to program and target forces without an operator behind the system. To prevent the enemy massing drone swarms, long-range precision fires, and loitering munitions on the Marine logistics unit’s position, masking and signature management will be crucial for survivability.
Defense
Every Marine logistician must train for defense. Marine Corps logistics units should demand their Marines stay current on events such as the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the second Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020. Examining these conflicts can provide insight to new tactics, techniques, and procedures. Today’s motor transport doctrine for convoy operations does not provide the depth needed to combat a seek-and-destroy drone attack. Systems such as the Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) and MIM-104 Patriot are showcased as possible deterrents to enemy air attacks, but they do not possess the capability to fend off drone swarms. The average cost of first-person-view drones with munitions is $500–$700. The Marine Corps needs options to deter and defeat these drones other than expensive MADIS and Patriot munitions.
These drones will operate at machine speed in the decision cycle, which may be too fast for any human to defend against. In the wars in Israel and Ukraine, autonomous machine-guided drones are already defeating jammers and effectively killing their targets. As the Marine Corps looks to mounted jammers for infantry squads, the production of seek-and-destroy drone swarms far outpaces deterrent technology. The Marine Corps must invest in its Marines and ground transportation vehicles. It must also prioritize systems such as tactical nonnuclear electromagnetic pulse weapons or high-powered microwave weapons, which could render drone swarms dead or inoperable and provide excellent defense for a convoy.
Camouflage is another measure to help with masking. Multispectral smoke could be used to mask ground military vehicles and equipment from air attack. Advanced vehicle design that reduces thermal, acoustic, and electronic signatures should be explored. Next-generation camouflage netting and radar-absorbing paint and tape also should be explored.
Finders
Autonomous weapon systems and drones, which soon will most likely be driven by artificial intelligence, can hunt independently and engage and destroy targets. When humans are completely out of the loop, fully autonomous drones will continue their missions until they are either destroyed or malfunction. These systems never sleep, have no fear, and do not retreat. They take advantage of speed in warfare and drastically accelerate the kill chain. Now, imagine thousands of these drones attacking a Marine Corps logistics position, convoy, or area of operation. Unless these units can mask their physical and electromagnetic signatures, they are likely going to be found and destroyed.
Adversaries such as China have been studying the United States and its military tactics for more than 30 years. Azerbaijan studied Armenia for more than 20 years and waited for the opportune time to attack. The Marine Corps cannot wait to be tasked to innovate. It cannot continue to treat training events as a check in the box. Signature management and an ability to mask in all domains will keep Marines alive and in the fight.
1. COL John F. Antal, USA (Ret.), 7 Seconds to Die: A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting (Haverford, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2022).
