LCS may be part of future distributed ops

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By Christian Lowe
Staff writer

Top Marine Corps and Navy planners are working on ways to split the Marine Expeditionary Unit into much smaller “entities,” looking at how a single ship from a MEU could peel off from its expeditionary strike group for a distant mission and still be able to bring enough combat punch to the fight.

The Corps could use the Navy’s futuristic Littoral Combat Ship to accomplish such deployments, said Brig. Gen. Michael Regner, deputy director of the programming office for the Chief of Naval Operations, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

“The LCS may not at this time have the berthing package … to put a rifle company of Marines” onboard, Regner said at the Sept. 5 Marine Corps Association and U.S. Naval Institute-sponsored Defense Forum in Arlington, Va.

“But do we see LCS giving us greater capability to be forward-engaged in many places to address the potential of irregular warfare? At this time, I’d say yes.”

It’s like taking the Corps’ strategy of distributed operations and applying it to ships, Navy officials said.

The plan is part of a joint Navy-Marine Corps operations concept finalized Sept. 1 that meshes future deployment methods being explored by both services.

The Navy’s director of strategy and policy, Rear Adm. Phil Cullom, said the so-called “Naval Operations Concept” will be promulgated this week on the Navy’s Web site, adding that Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of naval operations, and Marine Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee signed the document before the Labor Day weekend.

Navy Times staff writer Andrew Scutro contributed to this report.