I'm doubtful that the Army should fully embrace anti-ship roles; sure the Marines should not; and delighted the Air Force is getting a little bit of Billy Mitchell back in their blood.
Sinking ships is fun and easy:
Defense analysts assert that the Air Force is embracing maritime strike in a way it hasn’t for decades.
Over the last year, the service has announced multiple efforts aimed at bolstering its capability to combat Chinese naval forces. They include an additional buy of Lockheed Martin’s sophisticated Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, integration of the weapon with new and existing fighter fleets and fast-track development of less costly, more rapidly producible maritime strike munitions.
While I have lingering and deep concerns that our services will embrace Multidomain Operations so much that they lose sight of winning their core competencies, sinking ships is absolutely a core competency of the Air Force.
Or, at the risk of digression, anybody's land-based air power.
Makes the Marine Corps' Force Design decision seem kind of insane, eh? And I've long warned that the Army really should be careful it doesn't go down the same self-loathing (about its core competency) path.
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NOTE: The Lockheed Martin image is from the cited article. While I note this in my Sources and Methods page, I'll note here that I have a small amount of LM stock.
