Dispersing to Win in 2025
Abstract
Dispersed, relatively light, combined arms teams will be a realistic, and in some cases a necessary, option in rapid reaction and forcible entry operations due to projected advances in precision firepower, tactical mobility and force protection. Since WWI, conventional ground tactics have been based on large combined arms teams centered around platforms such as the tank, the infantry-fighting vehicle, capital ships and airplanes. These expensive platforms, especially when massed, will prove too inflexible and vulnerable in the future. The relationship between firepower, mobility and force protection that was changed so fundamentally by the tank over eighty years ago will undergo another great transformation in the next 20 years. Proliferating missile and sensor technology, asymmetric threats such as weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, and the blurred demarcation between conventional and unconventional war call for a rebalanced combined arms team. Such teams--based not on the armored division or air wing but rather on all-arms battalions--will serve as the utility infielders of future war through their unprecedented lethality, mobility, and flexibility. In particular, forcible entry forces facing a determined anti-access campaign can no longer mass strategic lift on easily targeted ports, beaches and airfields.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 21, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA527879
Entities
People
- Daniel J. O'donohue
Organizations
- Marine Corps University