Because the twenty sixth Marine Expeditionary Unit will get able to deploy, it’s heading to overseas shores and not using a key piece of kit that different MEUs have sometimes had: fight touchdown automobiles.
The commander of the twenty sixth MEU just lately informed reporters that his unit has needed to improvise because the Corps at the moment has a restriction on utilizing its new Amphibious Fight Car (ACV) within the surf zones offshore following a string of rollover incidents in Southern California.
Whereas aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, Col. Dennis Sampson, the MEU’s commander, informed a bunch of reporters final week that his unit has discovered methods to improvise and in some areas improve its skills whereas deployed, however that it’ll miss its touchdown automobiles.
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“We’re closely reliant on our aviation belongings to construct fight energy ashore,” Sampson mentioned, describing how his unit is compensating for the dearth of the ACV, including that the unit is now “extra reliant” on touchdown craft that the Navy offers and operates.
Till a couple of years in the past, a unit just like the twenty sixth MEU would set off on a number of Navy ships with a complement of Amphibious Assault Automobiles (AAVs) — a virtually 30-ton armored field with tracks — that Marines may use to land ashore. Nevertheless, the craft, which had been in service for the reason that Seventies, have been pulled from service after an AAV sank throughout an train in 2020, killing eight Marines and a Navy corpsman.
The AAV’s substitute, the equally boxy however wheeled ACV, was rushed into service, however the automobiles have been pulled out of the water solely whereas crews carried out security coaching final fall after the rollovers.
Now, the ACV can function all over the place however the surf, and the Corps is launching a brand new coaching program to make operations safer. For now, Marines who’re deployed at sea are left to seek out options.
“We would prefer to have ACVs for positive,” Sampson informed reporters who had been invited to watch two days of operations with the Navy and Marine Corps.
Given this panorama, Sampson mentioned his unit has pivoted to coaching Marines from the amphibious assault battalions that usually function craft just like the ACV and educate them to function the Navy’s 11-meter-long small boats.
“We put them by means of the Navy coxswain’s programs, and they can drive and function the ships to a excessive normal,” he defined.
“That is actually our effort to fill … a niche primarily based off not having amtracs or AAVs, ACVs,” Sampson mentioned.
The end result, in accordance with the commander, is extra flexibility for operations in coastal water, permitting the Marines to run missions like ship boardings and inspections. The association additionally provides sailors assist in sharing the burden of working and sustaining the boats.
“If there is a mission that we require them, we will function them,” Sampson mentioned earlier than including that if one of many ships within the group has a mission, “we will function them in help of their efforts.”
Nevertheless, the boats carry fewer folks than the ACVs, they’re far much less protected, and so they can’t take Marines from the ship all the way in which to land and again. They can’t substitute ACVs in amphibious operations — a mission that the service’s high officer, Commandant Gen. David Berger, has referred to as “a foundational side of the Marine Corps.”
— Konstantin Toropin could be reached at konstantin.toropin@navy.com. Comply with him on Twitter @ktoropin.
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