F-35Bs are part of this plan and a powerful sensor node to provide the targeting.

A long range missile gives the Marines a force multiplier for the F-35 without relying on Navy SM-6s.

Ground launched SM-6 is pretty close to the answer they are seeking.

... hoping for all the support they can muster

Why is it a role of the Navy to project power ashore?

I love this attitude.  Everyone has to help the land component guys do their jobs, but it's solely the Navy's responsibility to deal with anything afloat.

SM-6 is a SAM with a limited anti-ship capability.  It has a relatively small warhead and seeker search area compared with purpose-built ASCMs like Harpoon and NSM

If you want to employ it as a SAM, it needs (at least in its present configuration) to be paired with a very high quality air search/fire control radar and an S-band data link (currently provided by SPY radar).  That's not really a mobile/expeditionary capability.

The Army may own it - but the USAF is mighty particular about the Army actually USING it ....

https://www.upi.com/Feature-The-Patriots-fratricide-record/63991051224638/

Cool, thanks for the follow up.

Winning the war would destroy everyone's funding.

So, there's sufficient motivation to prolong it.

Trade deficits are enabled by, if not the inevitable consequence of budget deficits/QE. Stop "borrowing" (stealing) from the future and trade deficits will go away on their own.

And that is with about as close to zero air-breather threat as you could get.

Better to be as self-sufficient as possible.  Marines get F/A-18s, Marines get Harriers, Marines get F-35s, Marines turn tanker aircraft into gunships, too!

US Army used to have C-7 Caribou, C-123s, now we are dependent upon the whims of the USAF for CAS, Vertical Forced Entry Transport, and CAP.

Each Infantry Division Aviation Brigade should have two AC-130Us that the USAFSOC is phasing out.  Army used to have its own Aviation Mechanics, no reason why we can't send EMs to USAF tech schools to learn Herky Bird maintenance.

because didnt have any trade deficits prior to 1991

Hence why Sylvan is passive aggressively hating on Marines every chance, pure envy.

Lockheed has been tasked for exactly this and will be submitting a bid by the end of the week.

ORLY?



Current accounts was slightly positive in '91 because Japan paid us $500M to make up for the shortfall in their promised $9B in support to Desert Storm

And war is a political option. As are trade wars. And policy. Etc.

While some may think that Generals should hold open opinions on politician’s policies, that’s what got MacArther fired. The precedent continues through climate change believer Mattis.

the point.  you missed it

rofl

the delusions of the one hitch wonders is a sight to behold.

everything i learned about war and history was at paris island

Spell it out for the INTJ helo guy

Do you think the radar requirements are why ground systems haven't adopted a

pylon armament approach?  Planes like the F-18 have radars that can target things in the

air or on the ground.  One time a pylon might hold an AMRAAM.  The next mission it

might hold a JDAM.  The radar doesn't seem to care.  I don't see why a ground based

system can't do the same.  The base system is a radar/FLIR set and launcher trucks that

can carry armament canisters.  In one case, the system is overlooking a harbor and

ASMs are in the canisters.  In the next, it is at an airport and SM-6 or Patriot is in the

canister.  In another it is near a capital and has quad packed PAC-3 and ESSMs in the

canister.  The launcher seems like it should be generalized.  The munitions should be

specialized.

That isn’t really the wuestion I was answering, but I’d say less a pylon than a VLS cell on a truck. @warpusher should have a better answer, but that approach would probably be significantly more expensive than a single use system. Probably would need a weapons bus and a more capable mission computer and that might not be worth it for a 4-cell truck launcher like it is for a DDG VLS.

On the Army side, revival of the Coast Artillery Corps?

Not necessarily. Wake Island is a good example of where the USMC (along with some sailors and civilian volunteers) had to use coast defence guns to defend themselves (substitute here for missiles) as well as aircraft, and the Navy was not able to get there until it was too late and even then may have had to fight a battle to try and relieve them.

The ocean is a big place and the enemy is not going to wait for the Navy to show up; the Navy also can't be everywhere at once, especially given how few ships it has today.

It would be more expensive.  Aircraft such as the F-18 while capable of firing A2A and A2G muntions there's a world of difference.  For example, A2A pylons/positions are dedicated solely to those munitions.  Those pylons are designed to survive exposure to the instaneous blast of the rocket motor.  Now not every A/C uses pylons (F-22 uses AVELs and F-15C and F-4 have conformal loads), but A2A tends to be single use only.

For simplicity, for A2G you're usually carrying munitions to a certain point then dropping/firing.  The A/C is the guided bus that get the munition to where it merely needs to self terminal guide to impact.  There are some minor things aircrew can do to munitions in flight (change fuze times, reprogram impact points) but that's basically it.  The majority of weaponeering/building is done back in bomb dumps by Ordnance/Ammo guys.  Hence A/C dependent on the mission carry a mix of ordnance that is target dependent.

For a multipurpose VLS truck cell there's things that are missing that are built into the A/C, mainly the vehicle to get the munition guided 85% of the way there.  the complexity of "one stop shop" for both A2A and A2G is vast.  You need multiple radar sets and arrays to do everything.  Look at The Aegis Combat System...it can shoot both types of munitions, but its in a destroyer based package.

You would have to effectively break down the system into shore based components.  Aegis ashore is a good example, however its primarially set up for singly MDA activities and not multi role.

For ground based items its probably more effective to have separate systems (a2A and A2g).  The shooter part that holds the actual munitions should be capable of firing both munitions, but for simplified logistics have them dedicated to the system they serve.

For example, a stretched HIMARs could be capable of firing PACs, Standards, TLAMs, ATACMS (pretty sure they can do this now) etc, etc. This vehicle could have the appropriate plug in ports to interface with the systems to use those munitions, making the vehicles interchangeable.  The difficulty is going to be in combining everything into a shore based one stop shop for C4ISR.  Its easier to do that when you're on a 600" long mobile platform with built in electrical generation, relatively enclosed to environmental factors, and multiple levels of command and maintenance (aka Arleigh Burke) than to try to spread all that out ashore.  Its easier to set up smaller dedicated platforms ashore.

Another example, look at the LCS.  It's weapons systems were supposed to be plug and play with modules being relatively easy to swap out from the missions.  It hasn't worked out like that.  If you want both, you have to put the design work into all the things that go behind the scenes of employing munitions.  Airplanes have bases of support personnel to target plan, prep munitions, etc., and ships are enclosed versions of that.

you think theyre looking at these? as a option

Then there is a training issue to go from single mission to multi mission.  Shipboard CIC has a large team to handle AW, SUW, ASW,and Mobility missions.  One of the knocks on Patriot's 2003 mishaps was that the crews were not well trained in maintaining SA and managing the information comes ng from their system and just shot when a contact tripped their doctrine statements.

A multi mission TEL would require multi-domain SA or a more centralized C2 system with tha SA maintained elsewhere.

You mean shot when the ATO SpIns told them to.

Wasn't doctrine.  It was the CAOCC orders.

Two MM38 ship-to-ship Exocet missiles were removed from the old destroyer ARA Seguí, a retired US Navy Allen M. Sumner-class vessel and transferred to an improvised launcher for land use,[12] a technically challenging task which also required reprogramming.[13] One of these was fired at, and caused damage to, the destroyer HMS Glamorgan on 12 June.

That was rather energetic.  They canoed the ship.

I'm thinking Persian Gulf.

500lb warhead and 100 mile range would ruin another nations day

I'll say this as charitably as I can.

Shut the fuck up.

This is kinda silly.

Did the USMC repeal the law that mandates 2 2/3 divisions and wings?  What force structure do they give up for this? What MOS? Who trains it?

Pershing II  in the 80s was an Army program IIRC.   The tomahawk TLAM cruise missiles we put in Germany in the 80s with nukes were a USAF. Program, IIRC.  Both services have a long history and training pipeline for firing stuff like this.  I don’t believe there are any Guadalcanal vets around to replicate defense battalions.

The simplest answer would be ground launched TELs that use tomahawks, and rework the guidance system.  I suppose you’d want some guidance and direction that has something to do with GPS which makes the USAF a better fit.  But heck, why not?  Maybe the army should practice some amphib ops since having no relevant training, experience, or programs of record doesn’t matter anymore.

A few seconds of research indicates there already was an anti ship tomahawk variant, phased out in the 1990s for block IV.  Since we seem to be successfully able to have launched a thousand or so in combat from the Navy and B52s, who are trained manned and equipped, why should we convert USMC force structure to ground launch something to add a redundant capability? The USN and USAF aren’t going anywhere. Oh by the way, who protects these from attack, be it air, ground? Since right now we don’t have that requirement when you fire them from ships and planes? Who does maintenance?  USMC does their FA training at Sill, still? USMC signing up for all this?

Shore launched Hellfire has been a thing for a few decades now

Just because the Army threw away ADA capabilities doesn't mean the AF is to blame.  My dad was ordnance missiles and munitions, he established and commanded HAWK missile repair units, and he wasn't sent to air bases to do it, in fact, he was very proud of his time in the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood (and then took the unit he stood up to Korea).  The launchers he had responsibility for in Germany were also not near any air bases (and he got a scare one day driving out to check on some construction progress on the berms, when he got there, all of the launchers had been moved to their wartime positions, due to some UXO found during the construction, I think that was when we were in Darmstadt, but we'd also been in Hanau while in Germany).

Someone got their feelings hurt

Lol. So much range

Lots of butthurt accounts in this thread. lol

I'm using doctrine in the context of the Aegis Weapons System - operator programmed presets regarding track behavior like threat kinematics,  SPINS, etc.

Those dudes followed the orders given to them by the AF to the letter.  The air crew didn't.

Army has never deliberately engaged friendly air crew assets that I am aware of.

I can't say the same for the AF or Navy.

Somebody’s going to need a shitload of flex-seal...

KELBEAST is not wrong.

Sometimes circumstances cause this.

Small quibble - more Army units in WWII did amphib ops than Marine units.

They just finished their after action of the Guadalcanal invasion.

ETA, I have read enough to know that the Navy did the prudent move.   The rations, ammo, artillery, replacements that left on those ships were much needed but they would have been no good if sunk and dead.

It doesn’t make the lowly infantry guy any happier knowing that when he is short handed, short on ammo, and f’n hungry.

You know that the navy leaving was well before the deployment of those troops right?
They were brought to the island by that same navy, after that phase of the campaign.
Plenty of combat left, but they weren't there when the USN left, early in the fight.

@TxRabbitBane

Can you imagine 6-12 of these launchers lined up and firing off a salvo at a group of ships 100 miles out!

definetly would be a holy cheet moment on the recieving end

Better if they launched from 12 different locations, timed to arrive on target at the same time as several air launch missiles. Let their counter measures try to hit multiple targets coming from 270 degree arc at the same time.

that would turn the holy cheet moment into wtf did we have to go and provoke these guys and we are so screwed moment!

launchers stagered and positioned on adjoining small islands and small barge's

That is because they get the job done.