Marines sketch 'expeditionary maneuver warfare' scenarios.

• Author: Peck, Michael
• Position: Expeditionary Warfare

The Marine Corps is reshaping its war-fighting doctrine to become a faster and more responsive force. Key to making this happen is the availability of improved airlift and sealift assets, such as heavy vertical-lift transport aircraft and blimps, said participants of a Marine-sponsored wargame held in Quantico, Va.

The core of the Marine Corps' emerging doctrine is the notion of expeditionary maneuver warfare, an ambitious concept intended to transition the Corps from the old-fashioned hit-the-beach tactics of Iwo Jima toward modern maneuver warfare.

Based around the deployment of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade, expeditionary maneuver warfare is aimed at supporting joint force operations in the world's littoral areas.

Expeditionary maneuver warfare is designed to fit with the Navy's "sea basing" concept, which is built on the premise that operations can be planned, managed and conducted from the sea, reducing the need for land bases.

Sea basing will require a full spectrum of ships, including amphibious vessels, career battle groups, heavy cargo ships, black-bottom commercial ships and fast small craft.

The scenarios developed for the Marine wargame, "Enhanced Networked Seabasing," conducted at Quantico in late May, saw the employment of new force mixes, which combined assets from amphibious-ready groups and carrier battle groups.

In one scenario, an Expeditionary Strike Group--carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit--and a Carrier Strike Group were first to arrive in the crisis area. Within seven days, a Maritime Pre-positioning Force arrived, supporting a 15,000-troop Marine Expeditionary Brigade. The goal was for the entire brigade to be ashore within seven days after the MPF arrived, said Col. Art Corbett, director of the future war-fighting division at the Marine Expeditionary Force Development Center.

The wargame also was designed to help Marine officials fine-tune the Corps' overarching doctrine, called "Operational Maneuver from the Sea."

The idea is to be able to launch Marines in fast amphibious assault vehicles and aircraft from over the horizon (up to 25 miles).

"We're not doing what we did in the past, with an LST (tank landing ship) spitting amphibs 3,000 yards off the beach," said Corbett. Indeed, mobility by sea will enable the Marine Expeditionary Brigade to travel up and down the coast, landing, re-embarking and landing gain.

"It is our ability to use the sea as maneuver space," Corbett said. "The adversary either defends the...