U.S. Pacific Command has plans to put into practice a joint-service concept to integrate air, land and sea operations, with a mandate for all the services to incorporate the concept into their exercises in a lead-up to the Army sinking a ship at next year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise, the PACOM commander said last week.
Adm. Harry Harris said in a May 24 speech at the Land Forces in the Pacific Symposium in Hawaii that it is “critical that we approach implementing the Multi-Domain Battle concept with a sense of urgency” as threats in the Pacific increase. Multi-Domain Battle seeks to bring all the services together – with all their various sensors, weapons and networks – to create cross-domain warfighting capabilities for the combatant commanders to use.
I look forward to a guided missile destroyer taking and holding a phase line against a heavy armored counter-attack.
Any year now.
Look, I'm not against the Army helping the Navy out in the anti-ship mission--within reason. The Army once had a robust coastal defense mission in North America before power projection became the mission. So this isn't totally out of the Army's lane, I'll admit.
But the Navy has Marines and their own Navy ground forces to help with land-based coastal defense artillery/missile units. Why bring the Army in before those assets are tapped out?
Will Army tanks soon be sitting on beaches plinking frigates out to sea for the Navy?
Does anybody in PACOM consider how to use the Army as an army?
