By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
Island hopping attack, multi-domain operations and transportable, expeditionary weapons are all key Concepts of Operation informing the Marine Corps deterrence and conflict preparation strategy for the Pacific theater.
The Corps has established special “littoral” units for the specific purpose of refining an ability to conduct warfare operations in coastal and island areas throughout the Pacific such as the island chains in the South China Sea. As part of this, the Corps’ Marine Corps Force Design 2030 document calls for specific “stand-in” ready forces capable to conducting offensive operations in close proximity to enemy areas within the larger perimeter reach of longer-range weapons.
This transition, which includes a Corps emphasis on multi-domain operations and expeditionary weapons systems, has inspired the service to work with industry partners to anticipate future threats and requirements. For instance, forward operating “stand-in” forces will, according to Force Design, operate with a much greater concentration of drones, unmanned systems and manned-unmanned teaming to ensure mobile ISR and targeting and sustain connectivity with stand-off forces and other command and control nodes. Stand-In forces will also need self-protective capabilities and offensive firepower typically less available to mobile, dismounted, island-hopping units. These kinds of mission challenges, threats and operational expectations form much of the inspirational rationale for the Marine Corps emerging Light Amphibious Warship.
The Operational Concept is to enable closer-in, faster, lighter and more expeditionary amphibious operations and quickly transit weapons and Marines from island to island or along littoral coastal areas without needing to risk a larger, more vulnerable footprint. Quick landings and close-in-ship-to-shore operations will be required to a much greater extent should the Corps find itself in need of protecting or taking over island chain, littoral and coastal areas.
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These kinds of tactical scenarios drive a need for multi-domain, expeditionary weapons systems, one reason why Corps industry partners have sought to be enterprising and anticipate future service warfighting requirements. For example, Raytheon has been working with the Corps on a land-fired variant of the well-established ship-fired Naval Strike Missile.
Northrop Grumman, yet another massive weapons developer and US Navy industry partner, sought to anticipate the Corps’ operational need and enterprise a mobile, multi-domain missile system engineered to sling-load beneath a helicopter and fire from both warships and land-locations. Northrop Grumman’s Modular Payload System is a 26,000-pound four-pack missile system designed for forward, highly-mobile fires from warships and land-locations as needed. Built to travel beneath a US Navy UH-60 Sea Hawk or CH-53 Super Stallion, the MPS can quickly transit from am amphibious warship to an island location for quick setup and attack.
Northrop Grumman innovators, who displayed renderings of the weapon at the 2024 Surface Navy Association, explained that the weapon is engineered for maximum modularity, meaning it can set up fire control and attack wherever there is a link to targeting data. This means the MPS is built to synch with both ship-based radar and fire control as well as land-operating systems. Precise ranges or details regarding the warheads and kinds of explosives are likely not available for security reasons, yet the weapon is designed for mobile, offensive attack in support of dismounted, fast-moving Marines. The idea is to offer the Marine Corps a ready and quickly producible multi-domain weapons system to support land-sea amphibious attack operations. Missiles of this kind could potentially offer counter-drone protection, anti-aircraft fire or even missile attacks against high-value land targets with a previously non-existent level of versatility and mobility. The idea for the weapon, which emerged from Northrop Grumman, is to present options to the Marine Corps as it refines new requirements for new threats and different kinds of amphibious warfare.
The idea is, quite simply, to make lethality mobile, multi-domain and expeditionary in support of amphibious operations, precisely the kinds of operations the LAW is being engineered to support. While the Marine Corps has not yet determined a specific role for the MPS, it seems likely they will explore possibilities with the weapon. The Corps does not appear to have made any decisions regarding where or how to integrate the MPS weapon, yet its modular, multi-domain, transportable characteristics may make the MPS optimal for the Corp’s emerging Light Amphibious Warship.
There does seem to be an alignment between the Corps’ operational concept for the LAW and Northrop Grumman’s thinking about Marine Corps weapons requirements in relation to the MPS. An interesting Marine Corps essay on the LAW describes the ship as a specific effort to support expeditionary, island-hopping kinds of multi-domain attack operations. Corps weapons developers explain the LAW is intended to fill a critical maritime warfare capability gap between large, big-deck amphibs and smaller transport craft such as Landing Craft Utility vehicles or Ship-to=Shore Connectors. With this in mind, an MPS system capable of traveling beneath a helicopter from an amphibious assault ship or LAW could introduce unprecedented mobile lethality for “stand-in” forces needing close-in attack and rapid ship-to-shore kinds of combat transitions.
“LAW is to be a low signature, beaching, shore-to-shore vessel with intra-theater endurance capable of operating independently or in collaboration with other surface ships, other LAWs, joint task forces, or coalition forces in contested environments in support of Distributed Maritime Operations, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment/Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations across the competition-conflict spectrum,” the Marine Corps essay writes.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
