What comes to mind for me immediately given the current war in ukraine is that having light armor for use with airborne units isn’t gonna cut it in a modern conflict like we are seeing, maybe against third world countries but they can get their hands on RPGs and the like and will shred a BMD. While they have there uses against lightly armed troops they can’t survive heavy combat. To say nothing about trying to actually airdrop them without gaining complete air superiority. The Russians have never dropped them in an actual combat situation that I know off. They were landed by helicopter I believe in the war involving Somalia and Eritrea and manned by Cuban troops I think.
Better off scouting in a light tank than in a Humvee (uparmored or not).
I remember those days well. Soon after using the 7th ID (Light) in Panama and the end of the cold war, they were put away.
If you start with the premise that any light vehicle will be susceptible to RPG’s and anti-tank missiles, then things get easier. Do you want a squad carrier or a turreted combat vehicle? What do scouts do anyway? Do they drive around and see if you get someone to shoot at you? Do they drive near and area and scout around on foot? It appears to me that the scouts today are a drive around and see if you can stur up some trouble group.
To me, a scout vehicle has to have a low signature. Quiet, all terrain, low height, low thermal signature, stops bullets, high speed ability, not overly complex/expensive. More of a stealth vehicle than combat. Turret? No. Javelins sure. Keep the height to 6 feet or less.
Sounds like the old DPV/FAV that the Army got rid of!
Ken
Yes, the Marine Littoral Regiment will lack heavy armor and tanks with what I would assume would be the MRZR, NMESIS with Naval Strike Missiles, HMWWV, HIMARS, and JLTV compromising the main ground vehicles. The MLR won’t have (m)any tracked vehicles.
The JLTV can be outfitted with a RIwP turret with 30mm and Stingers for Air Defense.
What is see as problematic is that the primary ATGM would still be the Javelin at around 40+ pounds. The USMC has no UK NLAW ATGM as the Predator ATGM has stopped production and was phased out on favor of the Javelin. And the primary SHORADS will still be Stingers.
Sounds no tougher than the Airborne units.
more to the equation that just designing a generic tank. The Army wants an airborne tank that can be dropped from the air. Marines wanted a much heavier tank, so nobody got one. Another issue is tooling it up. That cost more than anything! The Bradley was supposed to the answer, and we know how well that went. There is one completely new design out there (maybe three to four months old) that seems to be turning heads. Then there is another just about three quarters done in design that will turn every other tank up side down.
gary
Having watched many political science lectures over the past three weeks, and having read various descriptions of the new Littoral Regiments, I believe they are designed specifically for the upcoming Cold War with China.
Chinese leaders have already expressed a two part strategy for removing the United States from the East China Sea and South China Sea so that they may express hegemony over East and Southeast Asia, much as the United States expresses hegemony over the Western Hemisphere.
The strategy will consist of two steps. First, the Chinese will take control of and fortify the first chain of islands located off the east coast of China. This will allow them to control the sea lanes immediately adjacent to China, as well as the polities in that region, using a combined arms force of air, land, and sea assets. It will also make it much more difficult for the United States to project forces into the area due to the loss of suitable land bases.
The second phase of the strategy involves taking and holding the second island chain off the east coast of China. Again, this will allow the Chinese to project a combined arms force umbrella over all the islands of Southeast Asia, giving them complete hegemony over the entire region. The United States, with no place to put their forces, will need to pull back to Hawaii, making it very difficult to project military assets into the area.
Polities in Southeast Asia, faced with an economically and militarily powerful China, will be compelled to become satellites in this new hegemony. They will trade prosperity for political freedom.
I believe the purpose of these new Littoral Regiments is to land forces on islands of the First or Second Island Chain, as needed, to project anti-aircraft, anti-ship, spotting, and command and control elements. This will effectively allow the United States to create a dynamic contact net of force. Enemy units entering the net will contact elements of a Littoral Regiment or other force. Information about the incursion will immediately go to a central command. The command will then direct the local force to engage the target or vector in more robust assets from aircraft carriers and land bases. The flexible nature of this contact web will make it very hard for the Chinese to know where it is, what it is up to, and to defeat the individual elements.
Again, please note this is my interpretation of recently acquired information.
I suspect this dynamic web approach will hold the line for a time, until it fails and polities in Southeast Asia join the expanding Chinese Hegemony, or those polities obtain nuclear weapons, making it effectively impossible for the Chinese to coerce much of anything.
The whole drama will play out as a very dangerous game of cat and mouse over the next twenty or thirty years, far more dangerous that the first Cold War. Another possibility is that polities in Southeast Asia will quietly capitulate, trading prosperity for freedom, and the Unites States will simply go home. What outcome will prevail depends on which military leader or political scientist you listen to.
I have attempted to express these ideas in neutral fashion and apologize if my description of the situation is considered too political for these forums.
With regards modeling, I think dioramas are an excellent visual way to generate historical interest in the viewer, both of past and projected future events. In this case, the shift in focus of the United States from nation building in Central Asia to containment in East and Southeast Asia could become a rich source of diorama ideas.
For example, one could build a diorama of a Littoral Regiment element deployed to some forsaken island, monitoring the area for a Chinese incursion. Viewers of the diorama would become interested in the subject and learn something about how the upcoming Cold War will develop. One could build a diorama of the Chinese landing troops on Taiwan, with elements of a Littoral Regiment, deployed quickly into the area, resisting the invasion force. This would inform viewers of the very real threat that World War Three will start over Taiwan. One could depict a Littoral Platoon rolling through a village in Japan, or Korea, or Vietnam, or just about anywhere in Southeast Asia. This would remind viewers that those nations have expressed a strong desire to resist the Chinese and retain their individual national identities. These forces could appear in so many places, the diorama possibilities are myriad.
The United States Navy recently put out a request for designs for a new Light Amphibious Warship to carry these Littoral Regiments. If you really want to go crazy, you could scratch build such a ship deploying elements of a Littoral Regiment. There is a lot of contention with regards what these ships should do and what form they should take.
Anyway, I hope that makes sense. Insomnia is a fickle mistress.
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Jane’s is reporting that the BAE M8 AGS dropped out of the competition, leaving the GDLS 105mm MPF as the only contender available, the tank in the thread here.
The USMC has expressed no interest in acquiring this light tank.
Hopefully the GDLS MPF contender will come with some form of Active Protection System (APS) as standard.
I’ve seen one photo of the first one I wrote about. I think it is a General Dynamics project, also could be wrong. The other is not to the mock up stage. It will actually have a commercial style power pack. Thus making spare parts far cheaper. There may even be a third one in the design stage as there is talk of it every now and then. I’d look for two similar designs, but also much different concepts.
There’s also a new on again / off again MBT out there. I’ve seen the power pack, and the new power pack bolts right in an M1
gary
The Chinese strategy as you described sounds a lot like that of Imperial Japan in their blitz across the Pacific and European colonies in 1941/42.
The Chinese embrace a national story called the Century of Humiliation. From 1850 to 1950, various imperialist powers used military might to exercise some degree of political control over China. The Chinese feel national humiliation over these events. They want payback and to ensure it never happens again. Many talking heads in the West erroneously state that the current leader of China is responsible for the push towards Chinese militarization and hegemony. That is incorrect. Almost all the political scientists I have listened to state that the Century of Humiliation and nationalism strongly exist through all strata of Chinese society and they collectively embrace a desire to assert dominance. They also state that the Chinese elite are strongly Machiavellian in outlook and this explains almost all their political actions.
To your point, Imperial Japan and Nationalist China are working with the exact same geography and very similar nationalist movements. To keep the dominant imperial power out, the United States, China will need to deny them land bases and sea lanes and that means taking the various Pacific island chains. The requirements for controlling Southeast Asia are almost exactly the same, then as now.
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post was the overwhelming superiority of the United States submarine force. If the Chinese take the islands, I presume they will lay underwater detection networks between those bases and thus deny the East China Sea and South China Sea to subs.
I will stop there as, once again, I do not want to stray too far into politics or conjecture. These Marine Littoral Regiments are a very interesting development and I am curious how they will evolve over the next two decades.
MRZRs with trailers carried aboard V-22s is one operational concept of MLRs as these ATVs can be loaded with Stinger SHORADs and Javelin ATGMs.
MRZRs can also carry the Switchblade (or UVision Hero-series) Loitering Munition drone in their cargo beds.
The unmanned JLTV NMESIS with two stealthy Naval Strike Missiles is another Force Design 2030 MLR option to provide 100+ nautical mile Anti-Ship Area Denial.
The quest is for lighter, faster, more nimble and mobile assets that can deploy longer range and unpredictably than relying on M1A1 tanks and towed artillery that the adversary can see coming miles away and don’t do much to deter enemy ships and aircraft. Yes, MLR assets can be unarmored and lightly armed, but the hope is that they pack a bigger punch for their small size and footprint…or that’s the concept anyway.
Any more serious threats, the USMC will call upon the US Air Force and the US Army heavy mechanized armored units…with the US Navy offshore to provide fire support.
Those are great as long as they don’t come under direct fire. My impression was this new Marine force was to be light and mobile.
what you say here is nice as long as they get help in three to five minutes (never gonna happen). To be more exact that three to five minutes is closer to sixty agonizing seconds. Off shore arty??? With what?
Cruise missiles will need to be programmed. Unless the fast mover are in the same grid square, they get there too late. I think the Navy put it to the USMC so they can build some more floating targets
gary
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I have been trying to resist the temptation to post something silly but I finally had to give in …
Beach Warrior
Seems to be some kind of super high tech weapon he is wielding …
You forgot to add a USMC patch!
Ken
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We don’t need to stinking patch….tattoo or nothing baby!
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