Be still my heart:
After years of developing a new way to link all the services in a fight across domains, the Army put its concept into action in the first-ever field exercise testing Multi-Domain Operations.
The result was an array of precision strikes on land and at sea, coordinated through a web of contacts across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, along with allied nations, in the largest maritime exercise in the world, Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC.
One key target during RIMPAC: the USS Racine, a decommissioned naval vessel.
For the first time, the Army participated in a SINKEX, or sinking exercise, at RIMPAC, firing long-range artillery, air attacks and shore-based missiles at the decommissioned ship, sinking it into the Pacific Ocean.
It's not that I'm completely against the Army shooting at ships. But the Army coastal artillery role was abandoned long ago. And the Navy has the Air Force to help sink enemy ships as well as the Marine Corps and the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command if it really must have land-based anti-ship artillery.
Why does the Army, which has enough to do with few people, need to step up for this role as the Navy's third ground force?
I'd rather see the Army focus on providing its core competency in the Indo-Pacific region with actual multi-corps (pulling in the Marines) planning--not eagerly accepting a subordinate role as Navy coastal artillery.
