The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit and USS Boxer (LHD-4) Amphibious Ready Group returned from the Middle East on April 24 after an eight-month deployment that involved a high number of exercises en route to U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility.
The deployment also involved an an emphasis on disaggregated and split ARG operations – made much easier thanks to a variety of commercial-off-the-shelf communications items the MEU assembled before deploying.
MEU commander Col. Christopher Taylor said at a May 15 presentation at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies that he wanted to make room on the ships for more ground units – a light armored reconnaissance (LAR) company, three rifle companies and a tank platoon, among other assets. The communications equipment the ARG/MEU was set to receive was big and bulky, so his comms team began to look for alternatives.
“I wanted to find space to put an LAR company on the ship,” he said. He took out as many of big communications boxes as he could, about 100 of them, and swapped them for smaller pieces of equipment. But he still needed more space for the ground force he wanted – “the [combat logistics battalion] usually takes 17 big 5-ton or 7-ton trucks; they took 37,” he said of the CLB he assembled. To create the space that larger force needed, he swapped out communications trucks and replaced them with small, mobile COTS systems with inflatable antennas.
“They weigh about 6-700 pounds,” Taylor said. “You can put them in the back of a Huey, you can put them on the roof of an embassy. … They’re very quick and low-key and it saves some manpower, space and racks on the shelves. So that was kind of our approach to this. And we ended up putting them across each ship, so it’s not like one ship gets one big [Joint Task Force]-enabler comm system. Each one of our ships had one, and then we established one ashore.
“That increased big box comm [capability] in a little box” allowed the Marines to “pull in a full air-ground Blue Force Tracking/Link 16 air picture into a little room, about 24 by 24 [combat operations center] and stand the whole thing up in about a day and have it running,” Taylor continued.
The result of the whole effort, he said, was more than just space for extra ground vehicles.
“From a tactical level, day in and day out, it really enabled us to take company-level forces or multi companies with a ship and go employ them across theater and not feel like it’s a split or disaggregated force lay down,” he said. Taylor noted the enhanced communications also helped with logistics and sustainment, as well as with submitting plans to and receiving approval from the chain of commander more rapidly.
Maj. Clifford Magee, the communications officer for 13th MEU, said after the event that the new, smaller equipment is specific to this MEU – his predecessor researched all the items and ordered them, and Magee and his staff figured out how to leverage the military and COTS equipment to provide the best capability for the Marines during the deployment.
“A lot of the assets coming out now, they’re getting better, faster, more maneuverable. So that’s what we’re looking for,” he told Defense Daily. “Some of the equipment is significantly smaller, which allowed us to put it into helicopters and move it out – and that used to take a ship actually to move it, a [Landing Craft Utility] or a [Landing Craft Air Cushion] to get it on. Now we can do it smaller, more capable, lighter and faster.”
Magee said the military acquisition process can be slow sometimes, but COTS products have a lot to offer and are rapidly advancing.
“Maybe it will continue to go further, this was a good test bed,” he said, affirming he would like to see other MEUs adopt the technology he used on deployment.
Taylor said he is working with Brig. Gen. Kevin Nally, the Marine Corps director of command, control, communications and computers (C4), to push the equipment the MEU tested up to the Marine Expeditionary Force level.
The enhanced communication – which also included iridium phones down to the company level, Blue Force Tracking on all ships and “the preponderance” of ground vehicles, and satellite and high frequency communications systems – weren’t just helpful for letting the Marines split into multiple groups to conduct more training exercises and operational activities at once, Taylor said.
“The operating environment absolutely requires an enhanced communication capability,” he said. “We also have threats out there. You’ve got to have redundant long-haul communications out there. If you go into a high-end gun fight, you can’t be single long-haul communications capable.”