Large bases simplify the enemy's targeting problems:
A future Marine force will need to lower its signature to make detection by the enemy harder, and the Corps will have to distribute its force, [Dakota Wood, a former Marine and senior defense fellow at the Heritage Foundation] explained.
“If I have to worry about 50 or 100 potential targets, that distributes the enemy’s fire and attention span as well,” Wood said.
Any force in the region will also need to “be robust enough that it poses a dilemma to the enemy,” Wood said. “It can’t just be a defensive force or the enemy won’t pay much attention.”
The defensive aspect is the idea of having floating barges to distribute assets on a large number of small forward bases rather than a big one.
Of course, to pose an offensive threat you need more mobility than barges towed around coastal areas can provide. Yet the enemy precision fire is a problem for the traditional large amphibious warfare ships.
Which is why I advocated armed transports modeled on World War II-era APDs converted from older destroyers and destroyer escorts. They would be capable of providing limited fire support to their own landing forces, and able to call on F-35B support from distant big deck amphibious ships.
They would carry up to a Marine company-sized element for smaller objectives, and could swarm a target from different directions if a large landing force is necessary.
Hopefully this would distribute the enemy fire and attention span, lowering the signature of individual elements.
