How Marines will storm beaches in the 21st century.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: SOLDIER TECHNOLOGY

ABOARD THE USS BONHOMME RICHARD, SAILING IN THE PACIFIC--Marines calmly marching off a C-130 aircraft onto a tarmac has been a relatively common sight recently. As for storming a beach from a sea-faring landing craft--not so much.

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While many pundits contend that ship-to-shore fighting is fast becoming archaic, Marine Corps leadership insists that future conflicts may again require amphibious skills. They admit that training for a forced entry operation has atrophied during the last nine years of conflict and the Corps' alliance between ships and sailors is not what it once was.

"In order to capitalize on the Navy-Marine Corps relationship, we need concepts like ship-to-shore maneuver in order to get the best out of both sides of the equation," said Brig. Gen. Robert F. Hedelund, commanding officer of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.

The trick in the future is to conduct a beach landing from a ship sailing beyond the horizon, miles away from shore where it is safe from anti-ship missiles. That means marines not only will have to stomach a longer journey to shore, but also they will have to operate ashore knowing that supplies, medical evacuations and fire support will take more time.

In an experiment during the biennial Rim of the Pacific naval exercise in Hawaii, the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory put to the test a revamped concept of storming the beach. It gave a company landing team, enhanced by an artillery platoon, a suite of advanced communications and robots to help them fight, resupply and evacuate casualties.

"We're taking the things that marines are doing in Afghanistan and sprinkling saltwater on them," said Vince Goulding, director of the experiments division in the lab. "We're taking them from the sea base, bringing them ashore to do the things they've already learned how to do."

Marines know how to land on a beach. The challenge is sustaining them on the shore when the ship is a hundred miles at sea maneuvering with the naval force, said Goulding. "How do you get food to them? How do you take care of injured marines? Can you command and control them adequately? How do you provide fires for them?"

Some of those questions were answered during a four-day amphibious assault exercise on Oahu. In the early morning hours of the first day, marines from Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment and Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment lined up in the hangar of the amphibious ship...