Why China will be watching as Ukraine’s marines attack Russian troops | Defence in Depth

we've all seen the movies landing craft deposit troops onto a beach into a hail of gunfire and with nowhere to take cover Sand and Sea are blasted by grenades and mortars as the Plucky Marines forced their way in land in the hope of Clinging On until reinforcements arrive from Over the Horizon however with anti-ship missiles able to reach out hundreds of miles just getting to the fight is now a fight in itself are the days numbered for amphibious forces if so why has the U.S Marine Corps invested 12 billion dollars in the idea and why have Britain's Commander units just trained 900 Ukrainian Marines in the finer Arts of amphibious Warfare maybe they know something we don't [Music] Marine units amphibious forces Naval infantry however you want to describe them offer military commanders a niche capability the ability to approach the often overlooked flanks of rivers and the Sea and launch an assault or threaten to launch an assault force of Marines in ships hovering off one part of the shore today could easily be 200 miles up or down the coast this time tomorrow does the defender take the risk of not moving forces to meet them but what if they don't land there and move on again do you keep chasing them the ability to threaten the shore without ever setting foot on it is highly prized in military circles Britain's royal Marine Commandos often known just as Royal were formed in 1664. the U.S Marine Corps about a hundred years later but we don't really talk about that as their first enemy was well us Royal is an odd animal take language now they may never do it but they will occasionally refer to others who have wrapped rap verb military slang to quit or give up from the expression he's given up and he's going home give him some paper to wrap his chips in and there's more Royal Marines don't eat with a knife and fork they use yaffling irons they don't drink tea or beer they consume wets and if they're pleased with something they say hoofing a generic term meaning good or most acceptable if for example a group of Royal Marines had been invited for a state banquet by the king they might afterwards describe the encounter thus we broke the yapping irons and had loads of wet it was hoofing however if you need someone to train ukrainians in how to conduct amphibious assaults whilst also extrapolating lessons for any future war in the indo-pacific region they're exactly the kind of folk you need to talk to Royal Marines and army Commandos along with instructors from International partner Nations have just finished training 900 Ukrainian Marines to conduct Beach raids and amphibious operations those skills will be a big help if they're not already being employed as Ukraine seeks to expand its foothold across the donipro river in order to get the high in Russian lines in the south of the country either to open up a new flank or to force Putin to diver valuable forces currently fending off Ukraine's counter-offensive to the east we're not exactly sure what's going on down there Ukrainian authorities have restricted access to the forward areas and this part of the front is arguably behind Russian lines and across a massive River so news is scarce however it looks more than just a raid raids are military Smash and grab operations get in grab information or enemy troops smash up a radar site or two and get out fast they are generally too lightly equipped and supported to be able to hold ground but whatever's happening across a donipro seems to be more than just a series of raids Ukrainian forces have gone across the river and seem to be staying which could pose real dilemmas for the Russians down there watch this space projecting military force from the sea onto the land has always been a tricky business but with 40 of the world's population and many economic and political centers of power located within 60 miles of the coast dominating The littoral Zone the bit of the Earth where rivers and seas meet land plus a bit extra on either side has always been a critical task for the military the problem is that land-based systems to Target troop ships and aircraft carriers now have ranges of hundreds of miles all part of what the military calls an anti-access area denial or a2ad bubble how to safely penetrate and operate inside an enemy's a to a d bubble is evident today in Ukraine and is focusing minds thinking about a potential conflict over Taiwan in the near tomorrow since the end of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars amphibious forces in the U.S UK Netherlands Australia and anywhere else have moved their thinking away from counter-insurgency operations that dominated the first two decades of this century and back to high-end state-on-state Warfare General David H burger then commandant of the U.S Marine Corps kick-started this process three years ago with a plan called Force design 2030. in this document General Berger said that the latest U.S national defense strategy redirected the Marine Corps Mission Focus from countering violent extremists in the Middle East to great power or peer level competition he said there was special emphasis on the indo-pacific quite which country in the indo-pacific demanded this fundamental shift from the U.S Marine Corps the document didn't say and there's no point speculating shift though they will under Force design 2030 the US Marine Corps will lose 12 000 Marines three regular and two Reserve battalions leaving only 21 regular and six Reserve ones 30 artillery batteries at 16 tube and 14 rocket and all of the seven companies of Tanks it's all designed to free up 12 billion dollars to be spent making the force more Nimble more lethal and more connected better able to act in smaller lighter groupings with long-range Precision missiles of their own plus drones for reconnaissance and strike underpinned by high bandwidth secure Communications so they have a clear picture of what's going on around them [Music] concentration of force is one of the British Army's 10 principles of war and it still has its place klausfits was not completely wrong but these days concentrating too early or for too long with too big a ground footprint or electromagnetic signature is to invite disaster the steel islands of huge logistic bases on land like Camp Bastion in the Heyday of Afghanistan are simply not Survival anymore everything is more targetable at greater ranges today than ever before headquarters logistic bases and fighting units all need to be flexible and spread out linked by Communications when needed but silent and unseen when not but It's Tricky the skill set of operating under an a to a d bubble may be developed with technology and training but how do you inculcate in your people the mindset of being effectively Behind Enemy Lines when you're absolutely not in fact when you maybe hundreds of miles away from the enemy in a location you might consider out of Harm's Way for the U.S Marine Corps in particular all this is designed to throw the 8080 problem back at that unspecified country in the indo-pacific demanding special emphasis small groups have connected low signature and lethal groups of Marines dotted throughout the let's say the first island chain for example will create a headache for any country in East Asia trying to break out into the Pacific or into Notions or dominate the South China Sea and you know the Taiwan Strait Britain is thinking along similar lines albeit on a slightly smaller scale with plans for the future Commando force a distributed operating model with reconnaissance and strike capabilities embedded at the lowest level using autonomous Maritime and air vehicles or drones in other words for decoy Logistics support and to conduct attacks so whilst it may be on a completely different scale these ideas of how to conduct amphibious operations in a hyper-connected world and from inside an enemy's a to a d bubble are being tested today in Ukraine and don't forget incorporating drone technology for resupply reconnaissance strike and possibly even casualty evacuation has never been done before in combat so the Brits the Americans the Dutch the Aussies in fact anybody in the amphibious Warfare game will be paying very close attention to how those Ukrainian Marines get on and that includes China hoofing defense in depth is a weekly video output by the telegraph of the big defense stories with the occasional special guest this isn't a skinny Frappuccino Dom although the talent can sometimes be difficult to manage if you'd like a daily fix of content about the war in Ukraine arches Ukraine the latest the telegraphs podcast for more defense stories we've left links in the description below and if you have a topic you'd like us to cover let us know in the comments please do visit our website for the latest updates news and Analysis or failing that you can read the paper and if I've upset any cousins in the US Marine Corps whom I've stood alongside on operations in Afghanistan I apologize it's meant with love not malice Semper Fi

Channel: The Telegraph

Views: 413,654

Keywords: Telegraph, News, China, Russia, Ukraine, Defence, Defense, Xi, Ukraine: The Latest, Defence in Depth, Geopolitics, USA, Marines, Marine commandos, Royal, Conflict, War, Ukraine war, Russia war

Id: n5mriUjZi_g

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2023