It began in 2016, when then-Lt. Gen. David Berger checked out Marine units within the Pacific and saw that without radical changes, the Corps could be sidelined, or worse, within the most definitely next fight.
As commander of Marine Forces Pacific, he’d seen wargames showing the Marine Corps battle its potentially biggest foe: China.
The service was set as much as deliver two brigades’ price of infantry and combined arms to a land fight that looked quite a bit more just like the Korean War than what they might face in what experts envision as a twenty first century, high-tech, long-range striking conflict.
Could the Corps sustain?
It was the beginning of the longer term commandant’s Force Design transformation plan — and the birth of the Marine littoral regiment.
To win against China, he’s said, Marine units would have to be trained and equipped to operate in number of sized units. They’d have to have the ability enterprise across wide distances, with a give attention to the littoral zone, where land and sea meet.
Because the Marine Corps has worked through its transformation often called Force Design in recent times, officials have restructured the infantry battalion, shed legacy equipment equivalent to tanks and reduced artillery.
The Corps has added drones, anti-aircraft equipment and is developing a ship-sinking missile.
All of that is to position the service to do what its top leaders think can be essentially the most pressing future challenge: support the Navy and the joint force countering China within the Pacific.
The Corps’ newest regiment, the Marine littoral regiment, combines latest drone and sensing tech, anti-aircraft equipment and a ship-sinking missile into one formation — purpose-built to maneuver across the land and sea, hopefully going unnoticed in order that it may well strike when needed, allowing Navy ships to roam freely while thwarting the Chinese military’s access to key terrain and maritime choke points.
Two regiments have stood up because the latest formation concept was announced in 2020 — the third Marine Littoral Regiment based in Hawaii, formerly the
third Marine Regiment infantry unit, and in late 2023 the twelfth Marine Littoral Regiment based in Okinawa, Japan, formerly twelfth Marine Regiment artillery unit.
A 3rd, and final, Marine littoral regiment is planned to launch in 2027, based out of Guam and using a rotational force, fairly than a permanently stationed unit for its manpower.
The regiments are concerning the size of a Marine expeditionary unit, with about 2,100 Marines and sailors — smaller than a regular infantry regiment, which comprises 3,000 or more Marines.
Commandant Gen. Eric Smith has stressed that the Marine littoral regiment continues to be a version of the Marine air-ground task force, the construct used to construct nearly all Marine formations from the Marine expeditionary unit to the Marine expeditionary brigade and Marine expeditionary force.
“It’s just sized and purpose-built for its task, which is to be light, lethal and austere and to have the ability to face within the weapons engagement zone when others are going to have to go away due to threat,” he told War on the Rocks in 2023.
“They’re exactly what we’d like within the Pacific,” Smith said. “It’s the perfect solution to the duty we’ve been given.”
And that task is to enable the Navy to fight the naval fight.
What that’s meant for third Marine Littoral Regiment and can mean for twelfth Marine Littoral Regiment and the subsequent regiment in Guam as they construct manpower and capabilities, is fewer Marines, latest equipment, novel approaches to attending to and staying within the fight, and a shift in focus from infantry to sensing and targeting.
Key differences
Lt. Col. Brandon Ward heads the Marine littoral regiment integration efforts at combat development and integration.
Past infantry and artillery units before the force design changes were organized for when the main focus was more on operating on the Korean peninsula or having the ability to deploy two brigades price of Marines if needed for a large-scale conflict.
But with China’s air defense systems and growing naval fleet, a Marine unit now must task organize and create “windows of opportunity” in those anti-access areas so the Navy and joint services can usher in their weapons or forces, he said.
This required moving away from infantry-heavy formations, with shorter-range conventional artillery and to longer-range systems equivalent to the Navy-Marine Corps expeditionary ship interdiction system, or NMESIS.
The Navy-Marine Corps expeditionary ship interdiction system combines a joint light tactical vehicle with distant controls and mounts a Naval strike missile on the frame, giving users a mobile missile system in a single package.
Members of third Marine littoral regiment’s littoral combat team are doing latest equipment training with the Navy-Marine Corps expeditionary ship interdiction system, with fielding expected in fiscal yr 2025.
The regiment’s sensing capability is as essential or more essential than its missiles, said Col. John Lehane, third Marine littoral regiment commander. Marine senior leaders have emphasized reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance capabilities as a key Corps contribution.
“We’re giving to the (combatant) commander a low signature team with the power to face inside a weapons engagement zone and supply them information in a way that will not be risking an (Airborne Warning and Control System), a $1.6 billion destroyer or take your pick of high value asset that is likely to be in danger when we will take that risk for you,” Lehane said.
To construct a formation that would task organize from as small as a handful of Marines to a whole regiment, depending on the mission, required some structural overhauls.
A typical infantry regiment holds greater than 3,000 Marines with a headquarters company, combat assault company and three infantry battalions, which include its own headquarters, weapons and rifle firms. The regiment is augmented by artillery and sometimes also task-organized for specific missions.
The Marine littoral regiment comprises three essential elements — the littoral combat team, the littoral logistics battalion and the littoral anti-air battalion — all overseen by the regimental headquarters, which comprises a headquarters and repair company, communications company and a long-range unmanned surface vessel company. It has roughly 2,100 personnel.
Signaling the shift in needs, the headquarters communications company is thrice the scale of that of a standard infantry regiment with way more business communications technology, Lehane said.
This implies Marines in the brand new littoral regiments will likely be senior in rank and be put in teams with Marines from other job fields more often. Smaller groups with mixes of infantry, communications, artillery and logistics running operations removed from headquarters.
The regimental and battalion headquarters will push their experts in various areas all the way down to those teams as they organize them for a individual missions.
The littoral combat team holds three infantry firms, a hearth direction center section, engineer platoon and medium missile battery.
The littoral anti-air battalion focuses on the skies with an air control battery, sensor platoon ground based air defense and Marine air defense integrated system platoons to counter enemy surveillance, missile and drone strikes.
Having air domain awareness, air defense and advanced sensing wasn’t something the bottom combat element of the Marine air-ground task force could do previously, Lehane said.
The littoral logistics battalion has a number of engineer, communications, supply, fuel and ordnance teams, platoons and sections.
Very similar to changes made within the recent infantry battalion experiments, which bumped ranks up by one to 2 echelons, equivalent to making staff sergeant the standard rank for a squad leader, the regiment is doing the identical.
Lehane said specifically Marines within the headquarters are several ranks higher with more experience and knowledge.
The combined structural, equipment and personnel changes gives the commander more options.
“That breeds a variety of flexibility in how we’re going to employ this unit,” Lehane said.
The road to here
A few of the early experimentation that began inside third Marines before it became third Marine Littoral Regiment included the August 2021 military exercise Island Marauder in Hawaii. Marines arrange in an early version of the littoral combat team worked with tactical tablets, goal handoff systems and really small aperture terminal satellite capabilities.
By March 2022, the regiment had been redesignated as third Marine Littoral Regiment and headed straight into the Balikatan military exercise within the Philippines, practicing littoral maneuver and communications drills.
However the unit’s first high-level accomplishment was in the course of the Rim of the Pacific exercise in July 2022–August 2022 in Hawaii and southern California when it simulated its latest mission.
The regiment scattered a handful of units ashore armed with the Navy-Marine Corps expeditionary ship interdiction system, sensors and fire direction and air control elements.
Those Marines were in place when a Navy carrier strike group approached the strait and called on the regiment’s team to knock out an enemy ship blocking their path.
In February 2023, the regiment conducted its first training exercise integrated right into a larger Marine air-ground task force.
That took place across southern California with units dispersed, operating like they might in expeditionary advanced base operations, a key concept for future littoral combat.
The regiment arrange a sensing node at Camp Pendleton, California, for airspace surveillance and control, a fires node at Camp Pendleton and one other fires node at Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California.
The regiment’s headquarters signals intelligence and electronic warfare section on San Clemente Island that used electromagnetic spectrum equipment to mask friendly forces from enemy detection.
Portions of third Marine Division, including third Marine Littoral Regiment, functioned because the stand-in force, defending terrain at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, from an assault force out of seventh Marine Regiment.
The regiment used its long-range precision fires, drone surveillance and short-range air defense to thwart the assault force, which captured none of its three objectives.
In November 2023, the regiment again operated as a stand-in force, this time alongside its partners from the Philippine Marine Corps 4th Marine Brigade and Coastal Defense Regiment and the Japanese Self Defense Force during exercise Kamandag 7 within the Philippines.
From late April to early May, the third Marine Littoral Regiment conducted training within the Balikatan exercise, including three major combined operations where they seized an island seizure after which defended the coast with a littoral live fire and a counter-landing live fire to stop the simulated enemy from reaching the shore.
Over the past three years the regiment has built its formation to give attention to wedging small teams of Marines into critical areas to coordinate air defense and missile strikes.
Each of the exercises has worked through long-range communications and syncing tools equivalent to electromagnetic warfare, sensing, masking, detection, allowing the teams to hit enemy ships and other targets.
Criticism and risk
Retired Marine Col. Mark Cancian, senior adviser on the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is cautiously optimistic concerning the Marine Corps’ latest regiment, but said much still must be proven within the concept because the unit evolves.
“It’s arguably well designed, there are a variety of questions on getting it in place before conflict begins or keeping it resupplied after a conflict begins,” Cancian said.
Cancian ran a dayslong series of wargames on the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2023 simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Resupplying units inside China’s weapons zone in the course of the wargame was “an enormous problem.”
The Corps is experimenting with long-range, autonomous submersibles to offer maritime resupply.
“That’s an enormous risk once you’re contained in the (weapons engagement zone) and once you’re operating in small units,” Cancian said.
The retired colonel said comments by Marine officials that troops will “live off the land” don’t add up.
“You’ll be able to buy food, you may have the ability to purchase fuel, you may have the ability to get trucks, but you’ll be able to’t get what you actually need and that’s missiles,” Cancian said. “You’ll be able to’t go all the way down to the local store within the Philippines and get a Harpoon missile.”
Lehane acknowledged the challenges of sustaining forward-deployed units but said the regiment was purpose-built to be lighter and more capable than legacy formations partially to handle those challenges.
Cancian likes the anti-ship missile development, “I feel that’s critically essential within the naval campaign within the Western Pacific.”
Like with the remaining of Force Design changes, the creation of the Marine littoral regiments has stirred debate and pushback, especially from a gaggle of retired Marine officers, generals and key senior leaders.
Vocal critic retired Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, former commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, argues that the move to littoral regiments requires too many tradeoffs and sacrifices combined arms maneuverability.
Van Riper questions whether Marine littoral regiment units will have the ability to get into place before conflict begins and whether or not they’ll have the ability to cover from an adversary’s detection in the event that they do.
“The (stand in force) concept assumes the Chinese won’t pay attention to their locations prior to a war starting, which is a stretch with the electronic and physical signatures these units will emit,” Van Riper said.
Col. Peter Eltringham, twelfth Marine littoral regiment commander, told Marine Corps Times that the unit’s position on Okinawa, Japan, allows the unit to coach commonly with the Japanese Self Defense Forces, all inside the first island chain near China.
Having the unit there allows for it to be present in competition, pre-conflict, he said.
Lehane, the third Marine littoral regiment commander, stressed work with partners and allies, equivalent to the Philippines, as crucial to having access within the region ahead of conflict.
And once the Marines fire their missiles, Van Riper doubts they’ll have the ability to maneuver fast enough to avoid a counterstrike, which might be mounted in minutes.
The Corps is experimenting with a landing ship medium program that may give Marines a low-profile, shore-to-shore connector. Plans call for a 200-foot to 400-foot long vessel with 8,000 square feet of cargo space.
Currently the service is using a 254-foot stern landing vessel, a modified business offshore supply watercraft, to check the concept.
Lehane said since its redesignation, the third Marine littoral regiment has rehearsed moving Marines and equipment from the third island chain to the primary island chain at a “moment’s notice.”
While they await fielding of the landing ship medium, the unit relies on Marine and joint force capabilities equivalent to C-17s, Ospreys, C-30s, CH-47 aircraft and black-bottom shipping vessels, the Army’s logistic support vessels, and the Navy’s expeditionary fast transport vessels.
Van Riper also has concerns concerning the regiment’s capabilities compared with its adversary’s.
The Chinese military has built an area defense network of ships, submarines, long-range aircraft and missile systems to strike targets to the primary and second island chain, which covers Japan, all of the Philippines and far of Indonesia out to an estimated 1,000 nautical miles from mainland China.
The littoral regiment’s Naval strike missile’s range is 120 nautical miles. The Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force uses the precision strike missile, with a variety of nearly 250 miles, and it plans to field hypersonic missiles also.
Existing U.S. platforms equivalent to Navy submarines, destroyers and Air Force aircraft have farther-reaching munitions and better capability than the regiment can provide, Van Riper said.
Lehane said the regiment and the Army task forces have complementary capabilities and coordinate closely. Some distinctions for the regiment included its organic air defense capabilities within the littoral anti-air battalion and the littoral combat team’s ability to seize and defend maritime terrain.
Putting the pieces together
Leading the essential components of the regiment — the littoral combat team, littoral anti-air battalion and littoral logistics battalion — are three lieutenant colonels, each with their very own experiences across a wide range of traditional Marine units before joining the regiment.
Lt. Col. Mark Lenzi commands the littoral combat team, a modified infantry battalion with three infantry firms and one medium missile battery.
The team had a head start on the remaining of the regiment as 1st Battalion, third Marines, was one among the units utilized in phase I of the infantry battalion experiments. Those experiments adjusted the scale, ranks and setup of the battalions.
Major changes included reducing the variety of Marines and sailors from 965 total to 880 total, removing snipers and making a scout platoon for those functions, adding signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities at the corporate level.
The largest difference between the legacy battalion and the littoral combat team is the missile battery, which is organic to the unit. In a typical rotation, artillery could be added to the battalion landing team once it began deployment work.
And the role of each the infantry and battery has modified.
In a conventional scenario, the battery would fire in support of the infantry’s mission, Lenzi said. But with the littoral combat team the battery provides fires to support regimental priorities and better headquarters missions. The infantry helps establish and protect the battery.
Lt. Col. Osman Sesay commands the littoral logistics battalion, which is nested inside the regiment, fairly than being separated in a logistics group, supporting a division, as is the more routine way of organizing the unit.
Having senior logisticians inside the formation, and logistics Marines embedded inside each task-organized unit on operations, quickens accessing and delivering supplies, Sesay said.
Lt. Col. James Arnold commands the littoral anti-air battalion, which comprises an air control battery and a ground-based air defense battery.
As with missiles and logistics, the air control and defense capabilities might typically be seen at the upper commands but not inside the regiment or battalions, Arnold said.
“Having those organic within the regiment provides significant advantage in making sense of the battlespace and synchronizing fires each organic and non-organic, which might otherwise require (Marine Expeditionary Force) capabilities,” Arnold said.
All three commanders noted that the structural changes allow for the Marines of assorted skill sets to work more closely with one another on a more regular basis. That helps with understanding processes, communicating and tackling tasks quickly.
Though the unit is formed, Marines proceed to tinker with concepts and employment. Lenzi said the littoral combat team is pairing scouts with group 2 drones, which can provide a reconnaissance approach different from what’s traditionally done in an infantry battalion.
Logistics teams are working on autonomous supply delivery systems and pulling resources from the local area in austere sites.
And the littoral anti-air battalion has worked through rapid deployment of its assets on C-17s so it could provide airspace surveillance as a part of bilateral training with Filipino counterparts in an aviation-centric exercise in 2023.
The Corps has bet big on the littoral regiment. It would ultimately reconfigure three full regiments within the Pacific tailored to get the Navy in place for a shooting war with China.
Because the service builds these units and trains alongside other nations, each latest exercise tests the concept at the guts of the Marines’ yearslong and ongoing transformation. How the regiments perform will signal the effectiveness of force design.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.