Zitat:The Marine Rifle Squad has made four changes to its weaponry loadout. These changes streamlined the squad’s firepower and gave the basic rifle squad better capabilities for modern warfare. The focus seems to be on making the individual squad more autonomous and more capable, which aligns with the structure update of the Marine Rifle Squad.

Zitat:M27 IAR

Zitat:The future M27 rifles will be outfitted with an LPVO from Trijicon, which will give every Marine a 1-8X optic for both close and long-range precision. Additionally, the Marine Corps plans to issue suppressors to every Marine.

Zitat:The M320

The Marine Rifle Squad ditched the M230 in favor of the M320. While it just seems like an anagram of the ole’ M203, the M320 offers Marines a far more capable grenade launcher. The M320 is a single shot, 40mm grenade launcher capable of utilizing everything from High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) to smoke and tear gas rounds.

Zitat:The M3E1 MAAWS

The Marine Corps is ditching the classic Assaultman MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). Assaultmen were company-level demolition and anti-armor experts skilled with numerous explosives and the SMAW rocket launcher. With the Marine Corps eliminating the MOS, the anti-armor role is going back to the Marine rifle squad with the M3E1 MAAWS.

Zitat:DARPA OpFires Can Provide The USMC With Mobile Hypersonic Missiles

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in collaboration with Lockheed Martin are developing the OpFires mobile medium-range hypersonic missile assembly to fit on the back of an U.S. Army’s Palletized Load System (PLS) 5-axle 10x10 truck. [...]

The OpFires Project will use throttleable rocket motors on hypersonic missiles to achieve varying ranges in flight; therefore, OpFires can hit targets within the range envelope up to 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers). At Mach 5+, the OpFires’ warhead can fly 1,000 miles in approximately 20 minutes. [...] The U.S. Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) and the U.S. Army’s Long-Range hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) also use thrust-vectoring rocket motors to throttle the thrust and allow for long-range maneuvering in flight. These hypersonic missiles fit within the U.S. Army’s Long Range Precision Fires (LRPF) strategy of differing ranges for U.S. 155mm extended-range artillery shells and for various precision missiles as outlined by Breaking Defense. The same media outlet also discusses the OpFires Project with its unique throttleable rocket motor.

Zitat:This is the Marine Corps’ wish list for its next high-tech recon vehicle

The Marine Corps is looking for a replacement for the LAV.

he request for the new vehicle lays out six potential variants of the vehicles: “The ARV FoVs is expected to consist of six (6) Mission Role Variants (MRVs): Command, Control, Communications, & Computers-Unmanned Aerial System (C4-UAS), Organic Precision Fire-Mounted (OPF-M), Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (CUAS), 30mm Autocannon and Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), Logistics (LOG), and Recovery ®. The planned Acquisition Objective (AO) for the ARV is 533 units over five production years allocated to the following MRVs.”

In other words, command and control over the battlefield, direct fire, counter-armor abilities, air defense, logistics and recovery. Control over UAVs and upgrades to weaponry include loitering munitions that can launch and fly around, just waiting for a target to appear.

In July, the Marine Corps announced it had chosen Textron Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems to begin developing prototypes of the vehicle. Prototypes are expected to be delivered in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, at which point the Marine Corps will begin evaluations and testing.

Zitat:Conclusion

By the time the MARSOC led CJSOTF turned over to its successor in July 2016, the area of Iraq under control of the Islamic State had shrunk to less than half its size at the beginning of our deployment and the Iraqi Security Forces had started to push towards the outskirts of Mosul. It was, of course, a combined effort, heavily dependent on all the resources that the Coalition was able to bring to bear.

The campaign against ISIS brought to war fighting a new dimension: the ubiquitous employment of drones by both sides, for instance, and the use of the internet as a medium for psychological operations, intelligence collection, and for recruiting surrogate forces from among the population in enemy territory.

The ability to employ proxy forces and to raise and train armed resistance groups against adversary states or proto states are areas of expertise likely to increase rather than diminish in value in this era of Great Power Competition.

It is true that the unique capabilities of SOF enabled the CJSOTF to make a contribution out of proportion to its size, but the advantages that we had in terms of training, and equipment are easily accessible now by conventional Marine ground combat units. The ability to employ multiple sensors and to link them rapidly to precision fires is not a skill that should be the exclusive use of special operations forces. The integration of effects in the electro-magnetic spectrum simply involves a wider view of the concept of combined arms that is already central to the way we fight.

If we are to operate below the threshold of detectable electronic emissions, we really need to take seriously concepts such as commander’s intent, implicit communication and – of course – that much discussed and universally neglected principle: mission command

As prosaic though it may sound, the fundamentals that enable us to adapt to the changing nature of war are already rooted in our doctrine. If only we could adhere to it.

Zitat:Dubbed Infantry Battalion Experiment Campaign Plan, or IBX30, the three-battalion effort is part of the Corps’ push to reorganize for conflicts with near-peer adversaries by 2030, which the current defense strategy says will require spreading forces across larger battlespaces while fending off new technologies like drones and cyber attacks.

Zitat:The current battalion with three rifle companies, a weapons company with crew-served weapons such as machine guns, and a headquarters company is not organized and equipped for future distributed warfare, he said.

A proposed infantry battalion design would eliminate the weapons company and train Marines in rifle companies to use a range of weapons instead of specializing in just one. The idea is that a smaller unit with more weapons training will increase their survivability and mission capabilities as part of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, Marine Littoral Regiment, or Infantry Regiment.

Zitat:IBX30 is testing out this proposed redesign with three real infantry battalions, each one trying out the design in a slightly different way. The experiment, overseen by the Warfighting Laboratory/Futures Directorate, started late last year and will continue until 2022 when it plans to present recommendations to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger.

“Our recommendation may be one of the three, or more likely it'll be some combination that is different from any of the three, but takes into account what we've learned from experimenting with all three,” said Watson.

Zitat:The Marine Corps picked three battalions across three divisions for the experiment: 1st Battalion, 1st Marines; 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines; and 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines. The units were picked based upon their status in the training and deployment cycle and the expertise of their senior leaders, Watson said.

Each battalion will test a variation of the proposed design, with differences in how they are organized and equipped in order to compare each unit, Watson said. 1st Battalion, 1st Marines will try a current infantry battalion design with a bit more troops and gear. The battalion is not a “control unit” for the experiment, Watson said, but rather allows the Marine Corps to see what small improvements could be made to the current structure to be able to fight in a distributed environment. This battalion will also be the first one in the experiment to deploy this year.

The 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines is being built to the exact proposed design with 735 Marines and a mix of newer weapons and still-under-development equipment. Getting all the new capabilities and specific Marines for the unit, such as those with backgrounds in electronic warfare, has taken some time, Watson said, but it should be fully built out soon.

The design and capabilities of 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines will fall between the two others. The Marines in this unit will receive training on multiple weapons, but not on all of them, keeping some specialization, Watson said.

The three battalions will be prioritized for newer gear as well as experimental equipment, such as armed drones. Watson would not get into specifics about the exact makeup and capabilities of each battalion, citing operational security.

Zitat:“So one Marine, based on the mission and based on the threat, can select the weapon systems that – or one unit can task organize and has the people organic to it who can employ a variety of weapons and sensors to accomplish their mission,” he said.

With so much being asked of these future infantry battalions, the Marine Corps wants to understand how a smaller unit, spread out from their command, can handle more technology and weapons in combat.

“How small is too small, you know. How big do you need to be and how many different systems is too many? So a lot of that is taking a look at human capacity,” Watson said.

Zitat:Man will dies vor allem auch durch eine bessere, breitere und längere Ausbildung erreichen. Im Endeffekt der Ansatz welchen auch die Bundeswehr eigentlich mal verfolgt hat, jedem Infanteristen den Gebrauch möglichst vieler verschiedener Waffen zu lehren, statt ihn auf bestimmte Systeme zu spezialisieren. Das Bataillon 2030 des USMC hätte dann dieser Idee folgend weniger Marines, aber mehr Waffensysteme als jetzt, in einer Art Waffenpool aus welchen die Marines dann das entnehmen was sie für ihren Auftrag benötigen. Die gleichen Marines verwenden dann je nach den Umständen verschiedene Systeme, und davon mehr als jetzt.

Zitat:Verschiedene Waffen(von der Pistole bis zum Granatwerfer, über leichte bis schwere MG und Panzerabwehrwaffen) an zufassen ist schön und bereichert. Bloß was ein Infanterist braucht ist eine Waffe mit verbundenen Augen bedienen und warten zu können, und zusätzlich die Einsatzdoktrin zu beherschen.