General: Undersea Domain Critical to Marines’ Role as Maritime Chokepoint Defenders
Posted on January 13, 2022 by John M. Doyle, Seapower Correspondent
ARLINGTON, Va. — The Marine Corps’ role in distributed maritime operations will require technology that can identify underwater threats as well as dangers posed by surface vessels and long range aircraft and missiles, a top commander says.
Speaking Jan. 13 at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium in Arlington, Lt. Gen. Karsten S. Heckl, head of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration, explained the Marines’ evolving expeditionary warfare role in the Navy strategy for dealing with potential adversaries in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept envisions littoral operations by specialized mobile, low signature units within larger distributed maritime operations areas. New Marine Littoral Regiments “uniquely designed to maneuver and persist inside a contested maritime environment,” will have a primary mission “to conduct sea control and denial operations as part of a larger naval expeditionary force,” Heckl said. Equipped with rockets, missiles and other long range fires, as well as surface and amphibious craft to increase their mobility, EABO units will control access to choke points while limiting an adversary’s ability to target them.
But “if you’re telling me that we’re going to occupy and control — sea control, sea denial — critical maritime slots, that means probably more critical than anything, the undersea domain,” Heckl said.
https://seapowermagazine.org/general-undersea-domain-critical-to-marines-role-as-maritime-chokepoint-defenders/
