Larger numbers of smaller units produces HUGE overhead & in fact cuts the size of your actual combat forces. Going from a Division based force to a Brigade based force is bad enough. The problems increase exponentially the smaller you go.

The big difference however is that smaller units within a larger unit can still operate semi-independantly but trying to get a large number of small units to act cohesively as a smaller number of larger units causes all kinds of headaches.

The Corps does need independent companies for security duty and to guard ships from pirates. This may require a couple dozen extra Marines at the company HQ for intel and logisitcs.

I’d convert the weapons company to a rifle company and cadre the three battlion HQs in a regiment on each coast. Then each regiment HQ would train its 12 companies in a rotational deployment cycle, so that 3–4 are deployed overseas to where they are needed. This is easily accomplished by ending the insane battalion deployments to Okinawa where Marine grunts are not needed nor wanted.

Its simpler to maintain all Strykers, all FCS manned ground vehicles, all HMMWV/JLTV/MRAP-ATV, or all Abrams/Bradley/M109/M113(well maybe not so much in the case of the Heavy BCT) in the same BCT. Some BCTs already use combined arms battalions that mix tank and infantry companies.

Semi-recently, Gen Petraeus mentioned a Heavy BCT that had some heavy Abrams/Bradley, some Stryker units, and some light infantry BCT units during the forced construction of concrete barriers in Sadr City. You can always task organize the 2–3 battalions or 3–4 companies therein with other types of battalions/companies in a force-tailored BCT or even division.

Example: You could have a heavy Bn task force with 3 M1A2 tank companies and a Bradley company leading a “division” along with perhaps two FCS battalions in a V just behind. That in turn could be followed by the remaining FCS BCT battalion,and a Bradley-heavy combined arms battalion with one Abrams tank company along the most dangerous flank. Bringing up the rear could be a Stryker BCT guarding the supply trains for the heavier battalion/BCTs to the front. The overall force would have a far smaller deployment and logistics footprint than 3 pure heavy or FCS BCTs…albeit with more complex ammunition delivery and parts/maintenance support that would also have to be task-organized.

Now put a similarly mixed division on another axis of advance.

Train as you fight? If IBCT, SBCT, FBCT, and HBCT are scheduled to deploy you could always train different battalions together at the major training centers and via networked simulators just prior to deployment. Once you did it on a regular basis, it would become second nature.

One advantage of this type of mixed unit deployment and combined arms employment is that you don’t end up with exclusively one kind of BCT deploying all the time to someplace like Afghanistan. The different types of units complement each other, so the unit is not too heavy, and not too light. The Goldilocks effect!

Not sure what the Marines could fit on a littoral combat ship, but bet they could squeeze more FCS vehicles and UH-60s on one than EFVs and V-22!! Give 10 FCS BCTs to the Army and 5 MEU FCS variants to the Marines and have the best of all deployment/employment worlds.

BTW, JCitizen, this is all notional…just ideas…not deployment units or schedules. It’s similar to publishing in a professional journal except its the 21st Century version thereof. Not all ideas are possible or necessarily smart here or in other threads. We’ll leave the enemy guessing which are feasible in what time frame and which the Army and Joint Force might actually adapt in practice.

In most cases, such forum discussions and exchange of notional ideas is tantamount to a Billy Jack moment where you tell the opponent where your left foot is going to go…and there’s nothing they can do about it. Tends to be disheartening to the threat or causes big $$ chasing of capabilities ala the Soviets in the Cold War era or China now.