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Marine Corps and Naval Surface Fire Support

Samuel L. Morison - 6/27/2005

In present and future U.S. military, a question about the Marine Corps has been seriously raised about abolishing the Marine Corps. Today's senior Marine Corps leaders are running their troops into the ground and nobody seems to know or care enough to do anything about it. Even their own Inspector General in a June 20, 2005 report to Congress has indicated such. Chesty Puller, a true Marine Corps leader, must be rolling in his grave in anguish and disgust over the current state of the Marine Corps! Today’s Marine Corps are turning into a Naval Infantry. Thirty thousand men and women of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), for example, are being deployed in Iraq! This is due primarily to the fact that a series of senior Marine Corps leaders, including today’s leaders, have proven to be gutless when it comes to standing up for valid Marine Corps requirements. A primary example is a requirement for Naval Surface Fire Support (NSFS).

Back in the days of Chesty Puller, a Marine Corps general officer routinely put himself on the line to protect his people. Meanwhile, today's senior Marine Corps generals are putting their people at "considerable risk" to protect their own careers by not standing up to the Navy, as well as to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Because it has failed to stand up for there legitimate requirements, including NSFS, the Marine Corps has become a vassal of the Navy and a second Land Army, which contradicts the Department of Defense Directive 5100, prohibiting the Marines from being such.

An essential component of amphibious operations and amphibious warfare doctrine is NSFS. Since decommissioning the last of the Iowa Class Battleships in April 1992, the Navy has promised the necessary NSFS to the Marine Corps via a combination of at least six different ship and gun/missile programs, the latest being the "black pit" known as the DD(X). All the programs started off credibly enough, but one by one they were constantly revised downward in capability or subsequently canceled. Program after program has failed, the latest being the Extended Range Guided Munitions (ERGM) program when after spending $598.4 million in research and development (R & D) funds spent over six years, the Navy finally gave up and cancelled it April 2005. The DD(X), originally planed as a class of 30 units has become nothing but a developmental bridge for the larger CG(X) with no more than 12 units now scheduled to be built.

In his June 13, 2005 "Washington Times" Op-Ed piece a proponent of the DD(X), Rear Admiral Charles S. Hamilton referred to the DD(X) as "the mighty ships of the future”. The piece is heavily rigged to reflect the Navy’s wishful thinking of the Navy rather than the facts. An excellent example of where the facts contradict the Navy’s claims is Admiral Hamilton comparison of the DD(X) to the Battleship. He states that battleships would not be able to fire munitions "as far as 115 miles in a life-saving time of only three minutes." That statement is absurd. There has never been any ship that is could fire munitions 115 miles. Contrary to his claims that Long Range munitions for the Battleship could not be quickly developed, tested and fielded with the next few years, it has already been done. One extended range munition, the EX-148 munition, a 13" Sabot round (NAVSEA Project No. S-1894) was developed in 12-18 months and repeatedly and successfully test fired over 100 times from USS IOWA from April 1987 to June/July 1990 reaching an ultimate range of 45nm. During these tests none failed or melted in the barrel as the ERGM munitions tended to do. The 13" sabot round was designed to carry a 450 lbs. warhead of 555 M-46 sub-munitions which is a warhead 19 times bigger than the new Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) round.

Before any more money is squandered on the DD(X), $13.3 billion to date, it is time to provide a near-term (within 2 years) NSFS solution. It's time to reactivate and modernize the battleships Iowa (BB-61) and Wisconsin (BB-64), not because they’re Battleships, but because of the NSFS and other capabilities they have/will have when modernized. Reactivation and modernization costs are estimated to be between $750 million to $1 billion per ship compared to the R & D funds already spent on the DD(X). According to the a recent Government Accountability Office Report (GAO 5-301), the Navy's acquisition life cycle for the DD(X) will ensure that U.S. ground forces will be without NSFS until 2030. We need credible NSFS now, not in a distant future.

North Korea is a prime example of where reliable NSFS would be needed. The two battleships could not only provide an effective "bubble" with which U.S. forces could project power ashore; but with most of North Korea's defenses and industry being underground, as was the case in North Vietnam, only the battleship's 16-guns with their 1,900 lb HE and 2,700 lb armor piercing rounds would be successful in destroying deeply buried targets. In North Korea, 70% of all targets are within range of the battle-ships' guns. This alone gives the U.S. a strategic deterrent we realistically do not have now. An amphibious landing or forced entry, such as Inchon, requires lethal, accurate, voluminous and sustained NSFS. Modernized, the battleships would truly be a transformational weapons system, empowering U.S. Forces with a credible ability to perform Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS).(a fancy word for amphibious warfare).

In 1996, the Senate recognized that since Operation "Desert Storm", the Navy has been incapable of meeting valid Marine Corps NSFS requirements to support amphibious landings or other amphibious requirements. The Senate also recognized the fact that battleships could provide a platform for surface fire support capability unmatched by any other Navy weapons system and that there was an ongoing concern to regarding the Department of the Navy's apparent lack of commitment to provide for the surface fire support capability necessary for amphibious assaults. The ability of the Marine Corps and the Navy to conduct forcible entry by amphibious assault is an essential element of the Department of the Navy's strategic concept for littoral warfare. "The conferees believe that the Department of the Navy's future year's defense program, presented with the fiscal year 1996 budget, could not produce a replacement fire support capability comparable to the battleships until well into the next century. The conferees consider retention of the battleships in the fleet's strategic reserve a `prudent measure' " and in doing so, Congress passed Public Law 104-106 to maintain two battleships, Iowa (BB-61) and Wisconsin (BB-64) on the Naval Vessel Register in reserve as Mobilization assets until the Secretary of the Navy can certify in writing to Congress that the Navy has an NSFS capability that equals or surpasses the Iowa Class capabilities.

Sadly, nearly ten years later, the situation with the NSFS requirement remains unchanged. A letter dated August 27, 1996 from the Marine Corps' Warfighting Development Integration Division, Quantico, VA. stated the following: "If we project our capability forward, based on the programs in development today, to the 2006 time frame, we would see a limited ability to perform Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) like operations.""Projecting further to the 2015 time-frame, we expect to fully realize the capability to execute OMFTS." The bottom line is that the Marine Corps, for at least ten years, will be forced to perform future amphibious operations similar the World War II landings at Tarawa and Iwo Jima where the Marine Corps suffered horrific casualties. Without NSFS, it would be even worse, much worse. It is ultimately, the responsibility of the senior Marine Corps leadership to ensure that the Marines get what they need to perform their mission and survive on the battlefield; even if it means telling the Navy and Congress in clear and certain terms it needs the battleships.

Tragically, the situation is about to get worse. The Navy leadership has now convinced a few key members of Congress to do away with PL 104-106, in effect leaving the Marine Corps and the Army with NO NSFS AND NO VIABLE PROGRAM to replace the capability of the battleships. Specifically, in the FY 2006 defense bill before Congress proposes that the last remaining battleships, Iowa (BB-61) and Wisconsin (BB-64) are proposed to be officially retired and turned in to museums. To date, not one senior Marine leader, including the Commandant, General Michael Hagee, has raised an objection. By their inaction and silence in defense of the use of the battleships, as an interim source of reliable NSFS platform senior Marine Corps leaders are in fact making themselves culpable in the unnecessary deaths of today's and future Marines when they have to make the next amphibious landing.

Since 1992, the senior Marine Corps leaders have testified annually before Congress that NSFS is an essential element of amphibious warfare and have in great detail articulated its NSFS requirements to the Navy. Yet, every year, the Navy fails to produce a replacement NSFS capability to which the Marine Corps does little but "keep a stiff upper lip." Clearly, if the Marine Corps is not willing to go to the mat for something that is "essential" (essential being defined as that which if not present or successfully performed will result in mission failure or significant loss of life). It prefers to go to argue about a recent study that the Marines do not need rough terrain forklifts for use in Afghanistan. Clearly, if forklifts are a priority for Marine Corps leadership and NSFS is not, the Marine Corps has poor leadership and performing the amphibious mission is becoming untenable. If the Marine Corps cannot perform the amphibious forcible entry without unacceptable losses, then the very need for a Marine Corps is called into question. Without NSFS, does our new expensive amphibious fleet make sense? One highly regarded former Commandant, General P.X. Kelley fears that by de-emphasizing its amphibious role, the Marine Corps greatly risks being seen as duplicating the Army with potentially grave results in terms of reduced funding and support for the Corps.
If the Marine Corps leadership fails to stand up and make a concerted effort to save the Battleships, the Marine Corps should be abolished and it's 178,000 authorized manpower strength turned over to the Army. In doing this the U. S. taxpayers could save over $15.1 billion dollars annually by not having to pay for an amphibious fleet that will have no amphibious mission. It's time for the Marine leadership to stand-up for what is right and honorable and make Chesty Puller proud.