[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 30, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9150-S9154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MARINE CORPS GENERALS
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have just received a letter from the
Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. C.C. Kruluk.
General Kruluk's letter concerns the Marine Corps' request for 12
additional general officers.
His letter responds to a letter which I sent to the House conferees
on the fiscal year 1997 Defense authorization bill.
My letter urged the House conferees to hang tough and block the
Senate proposal to give the Marine Corps 12 more generals.
The Senate approved the Marine Corps's request. But the House remains
opposed to it.
So the request for 12 additional generals is a bone of contention in
the conference.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my letter to the
conferees and the Commandant's response to it be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
July 29, 1996.
Hon. Charles E. Grassley:
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Grassley: I have been provided a copy of the
letter you sent to House Conferees concerning the proposal in
the Senate Authorization Bill that would give the Marine
Corps twelve additional general officers. While this responds
to the issues raised in your letter, it has been my desire to
meet with you in person to discuss this issue. I understand
our staffs have finally worked out a time to do so, and I
look forward to meeting with you on Wednesday.
Those familiar with the Corps know that we pride ourselves
in squeezing the most out of every dollar that you entrust to
your Marine Corps. The also know that we don't ask for
something unless it is truly needed.
The main thrust of your letter is that the number of
general officers should be reduced consistent with force
structure reductions. Reduction in end strength does not
necessarily have a one-to-one correlation with command billet
reduction. Permit me to explain. As you have correctly
stated, the Marine Corps in 1988 had a total active duty end
strength of approximately 198,000, with a general officer
population of 70. Today, we have an end strength of 174,000,
and a general officer population of 68. That said, please
note that the 82nd Congress mandated in Title X that our
Corps of Marines be ``so organized as to include not less
than three combat divisions and three air wings,''--as it was
in 1987, it is so organized today. This point is key: While
the Marine Corps has reduced its end strength by 24,000
personnel, its three division, three wing structure has
remained essentially unchanged. Those familiar with the
military know that the requirement for general/flag officers
is tied directly to the number of combat divisions and air
wings--and that number has not been reduced. Of the 70 Marine
general officers in 1987, 11 were assigned to joint/external
billets. Today, 16 of the 68 Marine general officers are
serving in joint/external billets. Today we have 52 general
officers manning essentially the same structure that was
manned by 59 general officers in 1988.
Throughout our history, we Marines have prided ourselves in
doing more with less. In the past, we have compensated for
our general officer shortfall by ``frocking'' officers
selected for the next higher grade to fill that position
without the pay. While that practice has its own drawbacks,
it did provide us with the requisite number of general
officers to fill critical shortfalls. Last year, the Senate
set increasingly strict limits on the number of general
officers that the Services may frock. And I understand their
rationale--the practice of frocking simply makes deficiencies
in Service grade/billet structure. These shortages are indeed
better addressed with permanent fixes rather than the stop-
gap measures such as frocking. This restriction on frocking,
however, has placed the Marine Corps in an untenable
position. Losing six of our nine frocking authorizations
means that we would now have 46 general officers manning
essentially the same structure that was manned by 60 general
officers in 1987. This makes it critical that we have
additional general officer allotments.
In response to your remark that we are ``simply trying to
keep up with the Joneses'' let me offer this: Other Service
ratios of general officer to end strength range from one
general/flag officer for 1,945 troops to one general/flag
officer to 1,435 troops. Excluding the Marine Corps, the
Service-wide nominal ratio of one general per 1,620 troops
would give the Marine Corps a minimum of 104 general
officers. The twelve additional officers that the SASC has
provided would give us a total of only 80--hardly keeping up
with the Joneses!
Finally, this is a matter of providing quality, experienced
leadership for our Marines. We are the nation's force in
readiness, standing by to go into harm's way to protect U.S.
interests globally. Providing these brave Americans with an
adequate number of commanders and representation in the joint
arena is not just prudent--it is the right thing to do.
Senator Grassley, I am convinced that these additional
general officer billets serve the best interest of our
Services and our national defense. I am also convinced that
the solution is not to bring the other Services down to our
untenable position, but rather to grant us the minimal
increase we need to properly perform those functions Congress
has mandated and our nation expects. Our meeting on Wednesday
afternoon should be productive--I am looking forward to an
honest and open dialogue. Semper Fidelis!
Very respectfully,
C.C. Krulak,
Commandant of the Marine Corps.
____
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, July 24, 1996.
Dear House Conferee: I am writing to encourage you to hang
tough and do everything possible to block the Senate proposal
that would give the Marine Corps 12 additional general
officers.
The Senate argues that these additional Marine generals are
needed to two reasons: (1) to fill vacant warfighting
positions; and (2) to meet the requirements of the joint
warfighting area mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act.
These arguments are nothing but a smoke screen for getting
more generals to fill fat headquarters jobs.
In 1990, your Committee took a very straightforward, common
sense approach to the question of how many general officers
were really needed. Your Committee could see the handwriting
on the wall. The military was beginning to downsize in
earnest. As the force structure shrinks, your Committee said
the number of general and flag officers should be reduced.
New general officer active duty strength ceilings were
established. The total number authorized had been set at
1,073 since October 1, 1980. The FY 1991 legislation reduced
that number to 1,030 in 1991, including 68 for the Marine
Corps. However, based on the projected 25% reduction in the
force structure between 1991 and
[[Page S9151]]
1995, which in fact occurred, the number of general officers
authorized to be on active duty was lowered to 858 by October
1, 1995, including 61 for the Marine Corps.
This is how your Committee explained the decision to cut
the number of generals in 1990 (Report 101-665, page 268):
``The Committee believes that the general and flag officer
authorized strengths should be reduced to a level consistent
with the active force structure reductions expected by fiscal
year 1995.''
The Senate Armed Services Committee report contained
identical language (Report 101-384, page 159). But the Senate
committee linked the need for fewer generals directly to a
projected 25% reduction in the force structure. In addition,
it provided a more detailed justification for the lower
ceilings as follows:
``The committee believes that these ceilings should assist
the military services in making critical decisions regarding
the reduction, consolidation, and elimination of duplicative
headquarters. The ceilings should also assist the military
services in eliminating unnecessary layering in the staff
patterns of general and flag officer positions.''
In reviewing your Committee's justification for lowering
the general officer ceilings, there is no mention of the need
to fill vacant warfighting positions--even though the Gulf
War was looming on the horizon. And there was no mention of
the need to fill joint billets mandated by Goldwater-Nichols.
Your Committee gave only one reason--the right reason--for
reducing the number of general officers in 1990: The number
of general officers should be reduced consistent with
projected force structure reductions.
So what has changed since that legislation was adopted six
years ago? Why has the Marine Corps fabricated a new
rationale for more generals? Nothing has changed. DOD is
continuing to downsize, and according to recent testimony by
Secretary Perry, that process is expected to continue into
the future (refer to page 254 of his Annual Report to
Congress). Your guiding principle still applies: As the force
structure shrinks, we need fewer general officers. It was
valid then. It's still valid today.
So why is the Marine Corps trying to topsize when its
downsizing? There is no reasonable explanation for giving the
Marine Corps 12 extra generals. The extra 12 generals
requested this year comes on top of an extra 7 Marine
generals authorized just two years ago in special relief
legislation.
In my mind, the issue boils down to one indefensible point:
the Marine Corps is trying to keep up with the Joneses. This
is a war over stars. The Marine Corps wants to have as many
generals per capita as the other services. This is not the
right way to resolve the problem. There is a better way. You
should fix it in exactly the same way your Committee fixed it
in 1990. You should fix it by giving each service the right
number of generals--a number that matches the force
structure.
I hope that reason prevails on this issue. At a minimum, I
think the decision on the extra 12 Marine generals should be
delayed until the Inspector General has conducted an
independent review of all Department of Defense headquarters,
commands, and general officer billets and determined exactly
what is necessary based on real military requirements.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley,
U.S. Senator.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to respond to General
Krulak's letter.
This is the main point in his letter, and I quote General Krulak's
own words:
The main thrust of your letter is that the number of
general officers should be reduced consistent with force
structure reductions.
This is General Krulak talking:
The reduction in end strength does not necessarily have a
one-to-one correlation with command billet reduction.
He goes on to say:
This point is key: While the Marine Corps has reduced its
end strength by 24,000 personnel, its three division, three
wing structure has remained essentially unchanged. Those
familiar with the military know that the requirement for
general/flag officers is tied directly to the number of
combat divisions and air wings--and that number has not been
changed.
Mr. President, I would like to respond to General Krulak.
First, the suggestion that the number of generals should be reduced
consistent with force structure reductions is not a rule dreamed up by
the Senator from Iowa.
The rule was first put forward by the Senate Armed Services Committee
years ago.
It has been expressed by the House Armed Services Committee.
It was the guiding principle used in formulating current law.
It is still in current law--section 526 of title 10, United States
Code.
That law places a ceiling on the number of generals and admirals
allowed on active duty.
This is the rule behind the law:
As the force structure shrinks, the number of generals and admirals
should come down.
If the force structure expands, then the number of generals and
admirals should go up.
That simple, commonsense logic has guided military planners since
time began.
Second, General Krulak agrees that end strength has fallen.
However, he contends that the Marine Corps' combat force remains
essentially unchanged.
Let's briefly review the facts.
In fiscal year 1987, Marine end strength was 199,525, including 70
generals.
Today, the fiscal year 1996, there are 172,434 marines, including 68
generals.
While end strength is down and two generals are gone, the Marine
Corps still has three divisions and three airwings.
General Krulak is right about that. The force structure is intact.
Unfortunately, it's not whole. Some troops are missing.
The end strength is down by 27,091 Marines.
If the structure is still there, but some people are gone, that's a
hollow force, isn't it?
Mr. President, is another hollow force creeping out of the Pentagon
fog?
Mr. President, on July 17, I placed a Marine Corps briefing paper in
the Record, page S7986.
That paper was entitled ``Making the Corps Fit To Fight.'' It was
dated April 1996.
This is what it says:
Marine infantry battalions are at 57 percent of authorized
requirements for platoon sergeants.
If that's true, then the Marine Corps structure is already getting
hollow.
A Marine platoon can't function without a good sergeant.
Mr. President, do we need more generals to lead a hollow force?
Clearly, a hollow force doesn't demand more generals. Nor does a
static force demand more generals.
Only a bigger force demands more generals, and that isn't in the
cards right now.
Third, General Krulak introduces another argument to justify his
request for more generals.
This one is designed to de-couple the issue from the force structure.
This is how he tries to undo the logic.
He says he needs 12 more generals to fill joint billets mandated by
the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.
It's a distortion to suggest that Goldwater-Nichols mandates more
generals when the force structure is shrinking.
Joint billets--just like service billets--should be squeezed as the
force structure shrinks.
This is the message hammered home by Marine Gen. John Sheehan:
``Headquarters and defense agencies should not be growing as the
force shrinks.''
That's General Sheehan, commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic
Command.
All the data points indicate that downsizing is continuing and will
continue for the foreseeable future.
So the argument that more generals are needed to fill joint billets
doesn't hold much water, either.
A few years back, the Marine Corps had another commandant. His name
was Al Gray.
He was tough as nails. He was known as a mud marine.
He didn't look at the Marine Corps' needs like a bureaucrat would. He
looked at it like a Marine--from the bottom up, starting with platoons
and companies.
In a December 1987 interview with the Chicago Tribune, General Gray
talked about his plans to fill his units with people from the bottom
up. I quote:
`If the Marines fill their need for officers and troops
before they get to the big headquarters in Washington,' he
said with a grin, `that might be a blessing in disguise.'
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this interview be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Chicago Tribune, Dec. 13, 1987]
Marines: Myth Versus Reality
modern corps is big, costly, heavy on supporting cast
(By David Evans)
Washington--The Marines have a new commandant, Gen. Alfred
Gray, a veteran of
[[Page S9152]]
the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He's characterized by marines
who know him as a self-taught thinker and a ``warrior's
warrior.''
He inherits not one, but two Marine Corps. One is the corps
of myth: small, cheap, and mostly fighters. A Marine Corps,
if you will, designed to kick down the door of a defended
coastline and put a lot of grunts on the beach in a hurry and
looking for a fight.
Then there's the real Marine Corps: big, expensive, and
with relatively few fighters but a big supporting cast. This
real corps plans to land ashore where the enemy isn't.
Al Gray isn't very happy with this real corps.
``We're going to make some changes,'' he growls. ``It's
time for a fresh, simple look.''
People are not his problem. Today's young marines are the
highest quality ever, by any measure. They're enough to make
a hard-boiled commander's eyes water with joy.
The real problems are deeper, and structural. They have to
do with the rising cost of the Marines, a tail-wagging-the-
dog support structure that pulls marines out of fighting
units, and a new-found addiction to costly, exotic equipment.
Gray is already grousing about some of these problems.
``Americans expect their Marine Corps to put fully manned
infantry battalions into the field,'' he said in a recent
interview, ``not units missing 100 or more troops.''
That's an unusual admission from the man in charge of a
corps of 20,000 officers and 180,000 enlisted marines. But
over the years the corps bought equipment that took more
people to maintain and repair, and it created more and larger
headquarters units. These competing demands for manpower, in
secondary support and headquarters activities, siphoned
marines out of the fighting units.
The slogans remain--``Every marine is a rifleman''--and
ringing speeches are still made about the infantryman as the
corps' ultimate weapon. But in the real Marine Corps, the
infantryman is steadily becoming an endangered species. Of
the 180,000 enlisted marines, about 33,000 are officially
designated as infantrymen.
Throw in the artillerymen, tank crews and combat engineers,
and the total number of enlistees in the ``combat arms''
amounts to barely 51,000. Instead of closing with and
destroying the enemy, the traditional role of marine fighting
men, nearly three out of four enlisted marines are now doing
something else; repairing equipment, hanging bombs on
airplanes, driving trucks.
In this respect, the Marine Corps looks very much like the
U.S. Army, where three out of four active-duty soldiers are
in support functions, too.
Mark Cancian, a Marine Reserve major, sums up recent trends
with this observation: If the corps' structure of 1962 were
in place today, a structure that featured larger infantry
battalions and less logistics support, ``there would be
17,000 more marines in Marine divisions--one entire
division's worth.''
``Another insight,'' says Cancian, ``is to look at the
number of `trigger pullers' in the division.''
These are the marines who personally deliver fire on the
enemy: the riflemen, artillery cannoneers, tank crews.
Everybody else is helping to coordinate and support that
fire, but the number of trigger pullers amounts to barely
7,500 in a division of 17,500 enlisted marines.
There are barely 22,500 ``trigger pullers'' in all three
active divisions. Add a few hundred pilots flying close air
support, say 500, and there are perhaps 23,000 marines in a
corps of 200,000 whose primary duty is to personally fire on
the enemy.
Most of these ``trigger pullers'' are found in the 27
infantry battalions that represent the cutting edge of the
corps. Those battalions may be short the infantrymen they
need, but they have plenty of headquarters over them: 29
regimental and higher level headquarters, in fact.
If the Marines have grown top-heavy with headquarters
units, they've also become harder to move. Too heavy for easy
deployment, despite Gen. Robert Barrow's warning as
commandant in 1980 that the corps ``should be light enough to
get there, and heavy enough to win.''
Artillery is an instructive example. The Marines ``heavied
up''' their artillery from 105 mm. to 155 mm. howitzers, in
part because the Army was shifting to heavier artillery, and
in part because of the long range of Soviet guns. But the new
howitzer has to be disconnected from the truck that pulls it
before being loaded into the standard medium-size landing
craft. And the truck doesn't have enough power to pull the
gun through sand, so a forklift has to be waiting on the
beach to pull the gun ashore.
Air units are more difficult to move, too. The Marines are
replacing their aging F-4 fighters with new F-18s. According
to the maintenance officer of a fighter group of 60 aircraft,
the number of maintenance vans that must accompany the same
number of F-18s went up 72 percent, from 150 vans to 260.
The Marines have become so heavy that the supplies for a
full-up amphibious force of 50,000 marines fill about 6,800
containers, each as big as a small bus. Landed ashore, the
containers blanket a huge area.
``About 22 acres of nothing but boxes,'' says a colonel,
who asks: ``Can we afford a target that large?''
``Amphibious operations by their very nature require
bulldozers and other heavy equipment,'' explains Lt. Col. Ken
Estes, a staff officer at Marine headquarters.
All those support marines, the heavier equipment and the
stacks of supplies cost more money. An E-3 lance corporal in
an infantry squad costs $15,600 a year in pay and benefits;
and E-6 staff sergeant clerking in a headquarters unit costs
$22,800.
The new truck carries the same 5-ton load as the vintage
model it replaces, but costs $31,000 more (in constant 1986
dollars.)
Heavier artillery shells for the new howitzer cost 160
percent more.
These are just a few examples of the thousand different
ways the corps' appetite for money has ratcheted steadily
upward.
The Marines are no longer the K mart of national defense;
they are smack in the mainstream of an upscale defense
establishment where costs are rounded to the nearest tenth of
a billion dollars.
The corps' annual budget now hovers at $9 billion. Since
the Navy buys airplanes for the Marines out of its ``blue
dollar'' budget, the real cost of the corps runs closer to
$13.7 billion a year, according to Pentagon budget experts.
Even the Marines may not realize how expensive they have
become. In 1976 the total cost of equipping, paying and
training each marine was about $37,000. That's in equivalent
1987 dollars. Since then, the per capital cost has rocketed
to $68,000 for each marine--a stunning 83 percent increase.
Part of that jump is the extra pay for more experienced
marines, with the rest driven by the rising price of
equipment and operations.
The cost is still less than the $104,000 the Army spends
for every soldier, but the difference is narrowing, and fast.
If the taxpayers cannot afford the money-rich diet to which
the Marines have grown accustomed, the Navy can't, either. Or
at least it can't afford enough of the kind of highly
specialized amphibious ships the Marines want.
The biggest new class of amphibious ships, for example,
costs more than $1 billion and figures prominently in the
planned expansion of the amphibious fleet from 62 to 76
vessels.
The Marines have rejected cheaper ships as a solution to
the numbers problem. One design concept, known in the
pentagon by the codeword LTAX, would have provided the same
carrying capacity as the large amphibious ships now under
construction, but at one-fourth their billion-dollar cost.
``LTAX didn't have the built-in survivability or creature
comforts,'' admits a Pentagon naval expert, ``but it would
have provided a way of complementing the limited number of
true amphibious ships we can afford.''
If the Marines have erred by growing too heavy for easy
deployment, they've also strayed from Gen. Barrow's timeless
dictum by not being heavy enough in the right areas to win.
In antitank combat, for example, the Marines' problem is more
than serious--it is critical.
With the exception of the TOW missile, the Marines'
infantry antitank weapons are not up to the job, according to
a recent General Accounting Office report on antitank
weapons. The warhead on the shoulder-launch AT-4 antitank
rocket is too small for assured frontal kills against
attacking Soviet tanks. Critics, including some marines, call
the AT-4 ``the paint scratcher.''
Worse, the Marines probably are not buying enough TOWs.
Their planned consumption rate in combat is one TOW missile
per launcher every two days.
The Marines have had the Dragon medium-weight antitank
missile for a decade, but its accuracy and punch are dismal.
In combat, the GAO estimates the Dragon may hit the target
only 8 out of 100 shots. Although the corps is upgrading the
Dragon with a new warhead and sight, it will be years before
the new weapons are in the hands of troops.
Moreover, the new warhead adds 2\1/2\ pounds to the
missile's weight, which skeptics claim will reduce the
Dragon's range. The first block of ``improved'' missiles may
be less accurate, because the pulse rockets used for guidance
corrections will be used up faster to counteract the added
weight.
Maj. Gen. Ray Franklin, in charge of the Dragon improvement
project, claims initial warhead tests are ``very
impressive.'' He's hoping to field 15,000 new missiles for
$60 million.
Other experts aren't so sure.
``They're getting super performance from prototype
warheads,'' says an ammunition expert, ``and they're having
nothing but problems trying to produce them in quantity.''
He believes the Dragon costs ``are going to go out of
sight'' even if the production problems are solved, and
Franklin won't get nearly what he hopes for the money.
If Marines on the ground aren't equipped to kill tanks,
they'll need air support to do the job.
At enormous expense--$5 billion--the Marines have equipped
five squadrons with British-designed AV-8B Harrier close air
support jets. The Harrier doesn't have the right weapon for
killing tanks, say a number of weapons experts familiar with
its performance in live-fire tests.
The Harrier's 25 mm. cannon was tested extensively against
tanks at Nellis Air Force Base in 1979. In 24 passes, the
Harrier fired hundreds of shells, getting plenty of hits but
not a single kill. Reportedly all but seven of the shells
bounced off the tanks' armor. Test reports reveal the Air
Force's 30 mm. cannon did much better, killing tanks in 60
percent of the firing passes.
Tom Amlie, a Pentagon weapons expert, says the Harrier's 25
mm. gun ``is too heavy for light work [shooting up trucks],
and it's
[[Page S9153]]
too light for the heavy work of killing tanks.''
It may be suicidal for Harrier pilots to press their
attacks to gun range, anyway. There isn't an ounce of armor
on the Harrier, and its engine is wrapped in fuel tanks. A
Naval Air Systems Command briefing reveals the Harrier is 10
times more vulnerable to ground fire, given a hit, than the
Marines' F-18 fighter, and 20 times more vulnerable than the
Navy's A-7 attack jet.
Instead of flying Harriers into the teeth of the thousands
of automatic weapons found in a Soviet motorized rifle
division, the preferred method is to employ so-called
``standoff'' weapons. These are missiles or bombs that can be
guided to their targets from outside the range of enemy
weapons.
``That's why they're ga-ga for laser-guided Maverick
missiles,'' concludes E.C. Myers, former director of air
warfare in the Pentagon.
The Maverick is tricky to use against tanks, however. Of
100 Harrier test runs against tank targets in 1985, the
Center for Naval Analysis found the pilots were successful in
finding, locking-on and firing only 6 percent of the time.
The Marines could use their F-18 fighters armed with
Rockeye cluster bombs against tanks. Because the Rockeye
spreads bomblets over a wide area, it cannot be employed
close to front-line marines. Even so, it is not a very
effective weapon. Defense Department munitions effectiveness
manuals indicate that four Rockeyes have less than 50 percent
chance of killing one tank.
The real Marine Corps, it seems, is ill-equipped, both on
the ground and in the air, to defeat massed tank attacks. And
this kind of attack is the Sunday punch of the Soviet army
and Third World armies equipped with Soviet weapons.
``We're not pleased with what we have for air work against
tanks,'' admits Maj. Gen. Charles Pitman, the assistant chief
of Marine aviation. He hopes improved Mavericks will solve
the problem.
Perhaps the biggest problem is whether the country can
afford the Marines' ambitious plans for the future.
The Marines are touting a new landing concept.
``We have to come from over the horizon,'' says Gen. Gray,
to avoid exposing the amphibious fleet to shore-based
antiship missiles.
But new equipment is needed to carry troops and equipment
the greater distance to the beach. One is a hovercraft called
LCAC (for Landing Craft Air Cushion,) which can ``fly'' over
underwater and beach obstacles.
The Marines also say they need a new kind of aircraft
called the MV-22 tilt-rotor. The MV-22 will take off like a
helicopter and fly like an airplane, tilting its engines to
again land like a helicopter. The new tilt-rotor would be
used land marines as far as 25 miles inland.
Freed of traditional beach landing restrictions, the
Marines say they can threaten a much wider coastline. The
enemy commander, accordingly, will be forced to choose
between spreading his forces or leaving large areas
undefended.
The Marines plan to exploit either choice by punching
through a weak and overextended cordon defense, or by landing
at undefended spots to quickly build up forces ashore, before
the enemy can move and counterattack.
``If we're going to land where the enemy isn't,'' observes
one colonel who's skeptical of the new concept, ``why bother
staying way offshore, over the horizon? We have enough
trouble landing at the right spot from 4,000 yards
offshore.''
``For the actual landing,'' he says, ``we've moved the
mother ships from 4,000 yards offshore to 25 miles. We've
increased the distance more than 12 times, but the hovercraft
is only 5 times faster. We're worse off.''
The speed advantage of the tilt rotor over current
helicopters may be illusory, too. Three out of four tilt-
rotor helicopters making the 50-mile trip from ship to inland
landing zones will be toting loads that are too big and heavy
to be carried inside. They'll be slung underneath, and some
pilots say these ``external'' loads will reduce the tilt-
rotor's speed further.
The experimental tilt-rotor now flying has never carried an
external load.
Ultimately, the marines must use beaches accessible by
conventional landing boats anyway. The new hovercraft and
tilt-rotor aircraft will carry ashore only 12 percent of the
troops, 6 percent of the vehicles and two-tenths of 1 percent
of the ammunition and supplies. Everything else will have to
be moved ashore in conventional landing craft, which will be
restricted to the 17 percent of the world's coastlines where
the water and beach conditions are suitable.
``The enemy will know the entry points on his own coastline
that lead to meaningful objectives,'' says a former Defense
Department official who questions the new landing concept.
``That's where he's going to defend, and that's the ground
the marines will have to take.''
``We delude ourselves by retaining the `assault' label,''
says Col. Gordon Batchellor, a highly regarded tactician,
``as we quietly build a scenario where movement, but no
assault, occurs.''
This force structure, he maintains, ``will be useless when
a true assault is called for.''
The new landing concept is expensive. Each air-cushioned
hovercraft costs $20 million and can carry a single 70-ton
tank ashore. For the same money, the Navy could buy four
heavy ``utility'' size landing craft, called LCUs, each of
which carries 175 tons.
A study by the House Armed Services Committee concluded the
tilt-rotor aircraft will cost more than $35 million apiece;
the CH-53E helicopter, which can carry twice the payload,
costs $16 million. The extra speed and range being built into
the tilt-rotor make up $15 billion of the total $25 billion
cost of this program.
The Marines are buying into a number of hugely expensive
and technically risky programs like the tilt-rotor. With
these systems, they can range up and down enemy coastlines,
jabbing here and there, but the Marines may well be giving up
the capability to deliver the body blows of serious war
fighting.
Gen. George Patton, no stranger to amphibious operations,
once said: ``A sparrow can outmaneuver an eagle, but he is
not feared. Speed and mobility not linked with fighting
capacity are valueless. Wars are won by killing.''
Yet it seems the sparrow is the Marine Corps look for the
future.
This situation may be perfect for Al Gray. After all, the
warrior is the man of bold decision in the face of adversity,
and Gray, as ``peacetime warrior,'' is facing monumental
problems. His budget is a fiscal Mt. St. Helens, unable to
contain the explosive pressures of bills now coming due for
costly programs started years ago.
``I don't believe in watering down our requirements,'' he
says, but he's also sending out strong signals that some
requirements may be revised. ``We're going to look from the
bottom up,'' he says, at the entire Marine Corps, ``starting
with platoons and companies.''
Gray plans to fill the units with people from the bottom
up, too. If the Marines fill their need for officers and
troops before they get to their big headquarters in
Washington, he grins, ``that might be a blessing in
disguise.''
He wants to move with breath-taking speed, bringing all the
infantry battalions up to full strength by next summer,
adding a fourth rifle company to each battalion as well.
Those two actions will put almost 6,000 infantrymen back into
the cutting edge.
``We're going back to everybody being an infantryman,
too,'' Gray promises. And he wants extra combat training for
all marines, regardless of speciality. ``The way we used to
do it,'' he adds.
What else can he do? A number of civilian experts and
Marine officers concerned about the future of the corps
suggest a few basic actions.
Eliminating unnecessary staffs is near the top of the list.
More than half of them are not needed under the most
demanding Pentagon plan for the Marine Corps, which calls for
the simultaneous employment of an amphibious force and four
brigades. Those commitments require only 13 of the 29
regimental and higher-level staffs the Marines now have,
leaving 16 of them unemployed.
At one stroke, Gray could cut the headquarters overhead by
55 percent, saving millions of dollars in manpower costs that
could be applied elsewhere.
With a quick trip to Europe, Gray can get the weapons that
marine infantrymen need to kill tanks. European antitank
weapons are generally heavier than their American
equivalents, largely because they have bigger warheads. The
West Europeans, who live much closer to those 50,000 Soviet
tanks, build weapons to kill them.
The Marines don't have to wait years for an improved
Dragon, which still exists largely as a ``paper'' design. The
West German Panzerfaust III and the French Apilas, two
shoulder-launched rockets now in production, are good for
short-range work. For longer-range antitank engagements, the
Milan missile, combat-proven in Chad, is available.
The Marines could buy 30 mm. gun pods to strap onto their
close support aircraft.
``The gun is the only way to kill tanks in close,'' says
Rep. Denny Smith (R., Ore.), who is prepared to help Gray get
the pods. They're cheap at roughly $300,000 each.
For the price of half the Maverick missiles the Marines
want to buy, they could buy 30 mm. gun pods for every jet
aircraft in the corps. And they'd still have three times the
800 Mavericks they now possess.
Among the corps' friends and critics, there is a nearly
universal belief that the Marines have lost focus. Instead of
concentrating on the basics, says Smith, ``they're trying to
capture hardware programs for a bigger budget share.''
A number of Pentagon officials, who prefer to remain
anonymous, echo those sentiments, citing the ``over-the-
horizon'' landing concept as little more than a technical
scenario for justifying expensive new programs like the
hovercraft and the tilt-rotor.
The concept that epitomizes what may be the most important
problem Gray inherits: the pervasive failure to separate
tactical needs from technical wants.
Tactically, the Marines needed a close air support
aircraft. Technically, they lusted for the Harrier, a jet
that could take off and land vertically. Now, they've got the
most vulnerable close air support airplane in the world.
Tactically, the Marines needed lots of landing craft to get
to the beach. Technically, they coveted the air-cushion
hovercraft, which is quite literally a ``helicopter with the
roof off.'' Now they've sacrificed the build-up rate ashore.
[[Page S9154]]
Gray appears to be sensitive to these problems. While he
remains outwardly committed to the Harrier and the tilt-rotor
program, he worries about the pervasive fascination at the
staff level with ``programmatic forces'' instead of real
``fighting forces.''
However, Gray is also sending out mixed signals to the
working level marines who have to translate his reformist
zeal into detailed plans and budgets. For example, he wants
to buy an assault gun, a form of light tank, which resurrects
a weapon that failed miserably in World War II.
When the Marines start sorting out their must-have tactical
needs from nice-to-have technical wants, they're likely to
discover a lot they can do without.
They just might figure out a way to produce a Marine Corps
the country can afford.
If Gray is successful in making the real, the heavy and
expensive corps more like the lean, tough, deployable Marine
Corps of myth, the Marines will be restored to what he calls
``real preparedness.''
``Anybody can have a bag full of numbers to look good,'' he
says. ``We're going to make sure we have the right people and
organizations for combat.
Mr. GRASSLEY. If General Krulak would look from the bottom up,
instead of the top down, he would quickly realize that sergeants and
lieutenants are needed more than generals.
Mr. President, I will be meeting with General Krulak in the near
future to discuss this issue.
I hope we both come away from this meeting with a fresh perspective
on what the Marine Corps really needs right now.
Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
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