By: Jeff Schogol
Modern weapons can destroy ships and landing craft many miles from shore, forcing the Marine Corps to turn to new technologies to ensure Marines can land in force on enemy coasts.
That's why a new task force is looking at everything from drone boats to electronic deception to get Marine raiders and landing teams safely ashore.
The task force’s goal is to find existing systems to exploit gaps in enemy defenses, allowing Marine amphibious vehicles to get from ship to shore, said Maj. Jim Foley, of the Marine Corps’ Ellis Group, an internal think tank that explores future warfighting scenarios.
“We’re going to have potentially different vehicles, but we’re going to enable them to get to the shore because we’re going to have more effective en route fire support,” Foley told Marine Corps Times. “We’re going to allow commanders to make better decisions because we’re looking at technologies that will support their command and control ability during those operations — and information warfare capabilities that will support that.”
Industry, academia and government think tanks will show what technologies they have that meet the Marine Corps’ needs next April at Camp Pendleton, California, Foley said. The task force then hopes to allow Marines to drive those technologies in an amphibious exercise that fall.
Read the full story at Marine Corps Times