Combined Arms . . . the Marine Corps Way

The Marines originally adopted combined arms because of the possibility that, as America s 9-1-1 Force in Readiness, they would have to face more heavily equipped foes. Owing to its efficacy, combined arms quickly became a pervasive way of thinking throughout the Corps, and Marines continue to innovate and refine this interdisciplinary approach to maximizing combat power. Many of the techniques they employ are transferable to the business environment and can be implemented in your organization.

SEAD

The suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) ^[16] mission epitomizes how Marines think about combined arms at the tactical level. SEAD comprises simultaneous direct-fire, artillery, and air attacks, synchronized by artillery forward observers (FOs) and forward air controllers (FACs), to create shock , terror, and chaos among opposing forces.

Upon identifying a target of opportunity, the FO calls in high-arching artillery fire, which fixes the enemy in place by forcing him to seek shelter from projectiles falling from above. During this initial attack, which lasts several minutes, maneuver forces ”infantry, tanks, or LAVs ”position themselves for a direct-fire attack, and the FAC brings aircraft, fixed-wing jets like the F/A-18 or helicopters like the AH-1 Cobra, into position for a strike. At a predetermined point in time the artillery fire pauses and aircraft deliver bombs or missiles on the target. With bombs away, the artillery resumes firing to cover the aircraft s withdrawal, and the maneuver forces unleash their direct-fire attack.

For an enemy receiving overwhelming accurate fire from multiple directions, all hell might as well be breaking loose. He cannot expose himself to defend against the air attack with a surface-to-air missile (SAM) because of the steel rain of artillery fire. He cannot run because he will be cut down by direct fire. He cannot return fire because he has no cover. With nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no way to fight back, he withdraws inward, and his will to continue the fight collapses.

Organic Critical Functions

The Marine Corps is unique among the U.S. armed forces in that it is almost entirely self-contained. Thus all critical combined arms functions ”air, artillery, maneuver, electronic warfare , and engineers ”are kept in-house. This policy is crucial to the Marines success with combined arms; breakdowns stemming from interservice rivalries, different operating procedures, or miscommunications are minimized. As an institution the Marine Corps can set overarching policies and standards that ensure consistent performance. And in the field Marine commanders can ensure that the various component parts of the combined arms team are working together in an optimal manner by maintaining unified control.

Task Organization

Like Sachtleben in Desert Storm, Marine commanders frequently assemble their forces on an ad-hoc basis, based on the requirements of the missions they must accomplish. This process of mixing and matching, known as task organization , enhances the employment of combined arms by bringing the best possible team with the skills most closely matched to the challenge at hand.

Every Marine a Rifleman

Combined arms requires that individual Marines place an incredible degree of trust in one another, even if they have never met, and the foundation for this trust is laid in initial training. All enlisted Marines are trained, first and foremost, to be riflemen, and all Marine officers are trained, first and foremost, to be infantry platoon commanders. This common initial grounding ensures that all Marines share a mutual understanding, meet the same high standards, and endure similar hardships. It is therefore much easier for a Marine on the ground to trust that a diving aircraft will deliver its bombs accurately if another Marine is piloting that aircraft. Likewise, it is easier for a Marine in the air to trust that an artillery unit will deliver its rounds on time, on target if other Marines are manning the howitzers.

Colocation and Cross-Training

Marines make the human investment necessary to ensure the success of the combined arms approach. Artillery officers and pilots, the principal orchestrators of combined arms, frequently rotate into and out of the infantry units they support. The purpose of these temporary assignments, which last anywhere from a few hours during a tactical operation to a full twelve-month tour, is twofold. First, physically colocating key personnel from artillery, air, and infantry facilitates the execution of combined arms missions enormously; any unexpected contingencies or differences can immediately be resolved in person. Second, when not directly involved in the execution of combined arms missions, artillery and air representatives can cross-train their infantry brethren to call in artillery missions and air strikes, thereby increasing the combined arms capabilities of the supported infantry units and promoting increased mutual understanding.

Communications

Combined arms relies heavily on reliable communications systems, without which the various Marine entities simply could not coordinate a given battle. And communications Marines relentlessly practice responding to system outages, failures, and network attacks. These intense drills aim to ensure that communication disruptions are minimized and hopefully mitigated altogether, because, after all, lives hang in the balance.

CAST and CAX

Marines practice combined arms relentlessly, and they have invested heavily, in terms of both money and time, to institutionalize structured exercises to this end. Multimillion-dollar combined arm staff trainers (CASTs) enable Marines to convene and practice combined arms missions regularly via computer simulation. But the ultimate in combined arms training is the three-week, live-fire combined arms exercise (CAX), held in the harsh Mojave Desert in Twentynine Palms, California. CAX is extreme training under increasingly challenging conditions. Units run countless live SEAD missions. Ever-vigilant evaluators , known as coyotes, monitor these missions closely, to ensure safety and provide thorough, immediate feedback. CAX scenarios reach levels of difficulty and complexity greater than that which could be expected in actual combat so that Marines are prepared for any possible contingency.

O-Calls

The officers call ”Marine parlance for happy hour ”adds a personal dimension to, and therefore increases the effectiveness of, the combined arms effort. Marine officers capitalize on every opportunity to have drinks, talk shop, and tell tall tales at the Officers Club, but these social events serve an additional practical purpose: Marines sometimes can match a name and a face to the voice on the other end of the radio. Such personalization serves as a surprisingly powerful means to foster trust among the various combined arms constituencies.

^[16] For the purposes of simplicity, we have limited the scope of our discussion to the SEAD mission, but Marines also involve in their combined arms attacks electronic warfare assets and combat engineers to eliminate further the enemy s potential responses. Electronic warfare assets jam enemy communications and radar, and combat engineers restrict the enemy s movement with mines and other obstacles.