Force Design Is Still Too Heavy
Light infantry can complement the rest of the Marine Corps’ modernized force structure.
By Gunnery Sergeant Jesse Davis, U.S. Marine Corps
April 2024 Proceedings Vol. 150/4/1,454
The Marine Corps should incorporate a light infantry force or develop light infantry-capable elements within the infantry battalion force structure. In this regard, the Russia-Ukraine war offers lessons the Marine Corps should consider. The Russian logistical failure shows that overreliance on logistics can immobilize a large force. Ukrainian small-unit tactics have demonstrated that in some circumstances a small force can devastate a numerically and technologically superior enemy. In other words, a versatile force capable of outmaneuvering the enemy can be built around a logistically independent and small light infantry force.
What Makes Infantry Light?
British Chindits on patrol during the World War II Burma Campaign. British Major General Orde Wingate’s light infantry created maximum damage and confusion among the Japanese by attacking logistics hubs, harassing rear units, and cutting communications.
British Chindits on patrol during the World War II Burma Campaign. British Major General Orde Wingate’s light infantry created maximum damage and confusion among the Japanese by attacking logistics hubs, harassing rear units, and cutting communications. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive
Some Marines might argue the Marine Corps is already a light infantry force, so incorporating it as a specialization would be pointless. This is a common misunderstanding.
A U.S. Army Command and General Staff College survey by Major Scott McMichael concluded that such forces are physically light—with no organic heavy weapons such as tube artillery—but still employ tactics, techniques, and procedures similar to those of a conventional (nonlight) counterpart.1 In contrast, European forces consider light infantry to be a tactically agile force that uses outside-the-box thinking, employs unconventional tactics, and is logistically self-reliant.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/april/force-design-still-too-heavy
