Hostile Takedowns

[COMMAR]

On another thread a member made a post about the easily misunderstood subject of Roles & Missions, in that case refering to Marines & the SEAL SMU that conducted HR mission last week.

This thread is not to go on about it, everything that needed to be said was already said. It will, however, serve as a bridge to go into another subject. A possible future capability for the USMC Infantry.

Just to clear the air Hostage Rescue; performed by SMU's such as Delta, the SEAL's DevGru & domestically by the FBI's HRT, was never a mission the Corps was interested in. Its too expensive, too time consuming, & too narrowly focused.

The MSPF's FR DAP, Direct Action Plt, had an 'IHR' In-Extremis Hostage Rescue capability which mostly meant maintaining the same Shooting & Assaulting Standards of the SMUs (which was verified in JSOU's report on a USMC contribution to SOCom).

It was also tasked w/conducting "Hostile Takedowns", a mission it shared w/Tier II or White SOF like regular SEAL tms. These differed from HR & IHR b/c there's no risk of injuring Non-Hostiles. They could range fr/Firm Structures to Ships (VBSS) to Gas & Oil Platforms (GOPlats).

This is not to be confused w/ "Compliant" Boarding which is performed by the Navy's Master at Arms & CG's Boarding Officers sometimes under duress, this is a Hostile Action, combat at sea (i.e. Al Faw '03, Iranian Mining boats late 80's).


[THE BRIDGE]
W/the MSPF gone, presently the only ability to conduct these Ops resides in SOCOM (SEALs & MSOC). The Corps however, has begun to build FR back up & is in the process of re-forming the MSPF for the purpose of supporting MAGTF/ESG Ops.

This is on the heels of CTF-151's ongoing A-P mission but its projected long term to threats beyond Somalia, future hybrid threats.

But the Marines, known for thinking outside the box, were recently caught Off Guard when the Pentagon’s Director of Surface Warfare, Rear Adm. Victor Guillory, requested they look at expanding their Long Term Hostile Boarding capability to the Company-sized Dets the Corps is planning to deploy on the new "Littoral Combat Ships".


Rear Adm. Victor Guillory speaking after a Surface Navy Association luncheon on March 19.

“In a nutshell, visit, board, search and seizure is a capability inherent in all our ships and we do it with the RHIBs [rigid hull inflatable boats] we have and the crew is trained with certain skill sets to do a compliant boarding and so we exercise that now.”

“What we’re beginning to look at with the Marines is some additional capabilities,” the two-star admiral said. “Perhaps to do [VBSS] in environments where [the boardings] are not benign, cooperative sort of boardings. But we’re only in the early preliminary discussions and certainly [Littoral Combat Ship] has inherent capabilities that make it attractive. It lends itself to us taking a look at the world we’re in and how we can adapt the capability we have to improve in this area, which is in high demand from combatant commanders.”

“I would say we’re early in the consideration of it, but it’s promising and I think it potentially could give us some additional capability in VBSS.”

These Dets tie into the larger SC MAGTF construct inwhich Infantry Co's will be Forward Deployed throughout a Theater Cmd to conduct various Contingency Ops including FID.

This could potentially put a capability to takedown Hostile Ships in every Company.

Presently plans are underway for a 30man FR based tm capability to rejoin the MEUs soon. But the Rear ADM's words a being seriously considered for the future & the Navy & Marine Corps have begun a Joint Working Group to flesh out the details.


So what do you think??