Marine infantry lacks anti-tank power and that is a problem given the major adversaries it may have to fight:
Adversary armor and mechanized units are not niche capabilities that we can expect to avoid on the battlefield. Russia has thousands of tanks in its inventory and uses them as the core of their ground forces. They do not field dismounted infantry; even their airborne units are fully mechanized, and they may still be intending to incorporate main battle tanks into airborne formations. China fields over 6,000 main battle tanks of various types and also puts a premium on armored and mechanized maneuver units.
Indeed. I've mentioned the Russian addition of heavy tanks to even their airborne formations. Remember, Russian airborne forces aren't fully airborne like our parachute brigades. The Russian units are really the elite part of the Russian army with the most readiness to act as a rapid reaction force.
Note too that in the Persian Gulf War the Army loaned the Marines an entire armored brigade.
Today, even the Army is deficient in anti-tank weapons and I worry that the light tank is seen as the answer for the Army's numerous infantry brigades.
I think the Army should break out the Abrams tanks in storage, refurbish them in our only tank plant, and establish separate tank battalions or heavy task forces combined tank and mechanized infantry companies plus supporting weapons and capabilities to plug into our infantry units to give them a fighting chance against heavy armor, as I advocated in a 2018 Army article.
Some could be active duty units, but this would be a good capability to put in the Army National Guard.
This could help out the Marines who have just two tank battalions in their active force for three divisions.
Building on the Gulf War experience, the Army could bulk up Marine units with some of those Army battalion-sized units when the Marines are on the same battlefield as the Army. That would really supplement Marine efforts to give their infantry anti-tank weapons to survive and win on a heavy-armor dominated battlefield.
Given the current emphasis on multi-domain operations where ground force artillery and air defenses are expected to help the Navy, you'd think that intra-domain help in the land domain would be a no-brainer.
