Give Marines and Soldiers Better Antiship Fires
Land-based weapon systems hold tremendous promise in helping the Navy control the littorals.
By First Lieutenant Walker D. Mills, U.S. Marine Corps
September 2019
Proceedings
In his book Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, retired Navy Captain Wayne Hughes points out that almost all naval combat since 1945 has been fought in the littorals.1 Littoral warfare expert Milan Vego of the Naval War College argues that this trend only will increase because “some 60 percent of the world’s politically significant urban areas are located within sixty miles of the coast, and 70 percent within three hundred miles.â€2
Yet, the U.S. Navy’s control of the sea is being increasingly contested in global littorals and narrow seas. As pressure grows on the Navy to meet this challenge without significant increases to the size of the fleet, the Marine Corps can help fill a widening gap between capability and requirements by providing land-based antiship weapon systems to support sea-control and sea-denial missions. To do so, the Corps needs to invest in long-range precision fires and supporting sensors.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/september/give-marines-and-soldiers-better-antiship-fires
