uksubs
Lieutenant Colonel
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2006
- Messages
- 7,050
U.S. rethinks a Marine Corps specialty: storming beaches
During an amphibious assault exercise at Camp Pendleton, Marines appear rusty. They haven't made such a landing since the Korean War — and some leaders wonder whether they will ever do it again.
Reporting from Camp Pendleton and Washington — On a stretch of clean, white Southern California beach, thousands of young Marines this month charged forward from the sea, leaping from helicopters and landing craft, echoing the exercises conducted decades before when Marines trained for Iwo Jima and Inchon.
It was the largest and most complex amphibious exercise since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It also could be one of the last.
Soon after Marine recruits are given that distinctive, high-and-tight haircut, they are taught about the great amphibious assaults of the past. Those stories, a core part of the Marine identity, "are encoded in our DNA," said Lt. Col. Bruce Laughlin, operations officer for the exercise, dubbed Dawn Blitz.
But the Marines have not stormed a hostile beach since Inchon during the Korean War. And influential military thinkers — including, most notably, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates — have begun to question whether the Marines will ever do it again.
In a speech last month, Gates said rogue nations and nonstate movements such as Hezbollah now possessed sophisticated guided missiles that could destroy naval ships, forcing them to stay well away from shore and making any sort of beach landing by Marines extremely dangerous.
Countries including China and Iran have guided missiles and other defenses to deter a beach landing, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who has written skeptically of traditional amphibious landings. Minor powers, meanwhile, could hardly resist the kind of landing the Marines practiced in Dawn Blitz, he said.
"Where are we going to use this? Can the effect justify the rather high cost we are paying for this?" Krepinevich said.
For more than eight years, the Marines have been fighting hundreds of miles from the sea in Iraq's Anbar and Afghanistan's Helmand provinces. They have remade themselves as experts on counter-insurgency. They have subdued and co-opted militant movements in Iraq. Now they are trying to do the same in Afghanistan.
But in that period they have not trained on a large scale to take a beach from a hostile force, moving in darkness, using a coordinated punch of firepower from ships, aircraft and infantry "grunts" with sand and seawater on their boots.
"A few older Marines had to dust off some old memories to snap back into it," said Maj. Howard Hall, the senior watch officer for Dawn Blitz.
During an amphibious assault exercise at Camp Pendleton, Marines appear rusty. They haven't made such a landing since the Korean War — and some leaders wonder whether they will ever do it again.
Reporting from Camp Pendleton and Washington — On a stretch of clean, white Southern California beach, thousands of young Marines this month charged forward from the sea, leaping from helicopters and landing craft, echoing the exercises conducted decades before when Marines trained for Iwo Jima and Inchon.
It was the largest and most complex amphibious exercise since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It also could be one of the last.
Soon after Marine recruits are given that distinctive, high-and-tight haircut, they are taught about the great amphibious assaults of the past. Those stories, a core part of the Marine identity, "are encoded in our DNA," said Lt. Col. Bruce Laughlin, operations officer for the exercise, dubbed Dawn Blitz.
But the Marines have not stormed a hostile beach since Inchon during the Korean War. And influential military thinkers — including, most notably, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates — have begun to question whether the Marines will ever do it again.
In a speech last month, Gates said rogue nations and nonstate movements such as Hezbollah now possessed sophisticated guided missiles that could destroy naval ships, forcing them to stay well away from shore and making any sort of beach landing by Marines extremely dangerous.
Countries including China and Iran have guided missiles and other defenses to deter a beach landing, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who has written skeptically of traditional amphibious landings. Minor powers, meanwhile, could hardly resist the kind of landing the Marines practiced in Dawn Blitz, he said.
"Where are we going to use this? Can the effect justify the rather high cost we are paying for this?" Krepinevich said.
For more than eight years, the Marines have been fighting hundreds of miles from the sea in Iraq's Anbar and Afghanistan's Helmand provinces. They have remade themselves as experts on counter-insurgency. They have subdued and co-opted militant movements in Iraq. Now they are trying to do the same in Afghanistan.
But in that period they have not trained on a large scale to take a beach from a hostile force, moving in darkness, using a coordinated punch of firepower from ships, aircraft and infantry "grunts" with sand and seawater on their boots.
"A few older Marines had to dust off some old memories to snap back into it," said Maj. Howard Hall, the senior watch officer for Dawn Blitz.
