Latest news with #AirandSpaceExposition
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Yahoo
Handheld counter-drone devices headed to deploying Marine units
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Deploying dismounted Marine units will soon field handheld counter-drone system prototypes as the service also bulks up their drone protection on fixed bases. Those systems, paired with an increased emphasis on air defense training for all Marines, are part of how the Corps is getting after the drone threat. The announcement came Tuesday at the Navy League's annual Sea, Air and Space Exposition during a panel on Marine Corps modernization. 'It has been a long time, maybe since World War II, since a member of an infantry squad on the ground actually had to look up or over his shoulder do anything other than clear an aircraft hot, or call in a medevac or something like that,' said Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, head of Training and Education Command. Drone killing Marines: Corps seeks 'buckshot-like' counter-drone gear The Marine Corps provided few details about the prototypes, citing security concerns. 'As a matter of operational security, the exact technologies will not be discussed, but the interim solution fielded will allow Marines to detect, track, identify, and kinetically and non-kinetically defeat adversary [small unmanned aircraft systems] in a dismounted formation,' according to a release. Watson noted that in the Cold War era, Marines commonly trained in defending small units from air attack. That was less necessary during the era of complete air superiority that troops experienced in recent wars. A return to cover, concealment and camouflage focus is also part of the initiative, Watson said. 'We may never fight again with the air superiority in the way we have traditionally come to appreciate it,' Watson said. The protection isn't just for the infantry, either. 'One of the things that is apparent to all of us is that unmanned aerial systems are a threat not just to infantry Marines, but to all Marines,' said Lt. Gen. Eric Austin, head of Combat Development Command. Those deploying units are likely going to be the Marine Expeditionary Units and Marine Littoral Regiments, a Marine official told Marine Corps Times. The handheld dismounted prototypes are for defeating small drone threats, which thwart small, dismounted units. The Corps also has a larger ground-based air defense program known as GBAD, which works against larger threats, such as missiles and mortars. 'Current Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD) capabilities that are being fielded today predominantly focus on mounted platforms organic to the Low Altitude Air Defense Battalions (LAAD Bn) and the Littoral Anti-Air Battalions (LAAB), which encompass the entire air defense continuum up to and including defeating manned aircraft and cruise missile threats,' according to a Marine release. 'Those dedicated air defense assets are not always practical or available at scale to support individual unit operations.' The selection came after a year-long review process and a fly-off, which pitted various systems against each other in September, officials said. In March, the Corps awarded a $642 million, 10-year contract to Anduril to provide installation-based, counter-drone equipment to protect Marine bases and fixed sites. The same company received a $200 million contract to develop the Marine Air Defense Integrated System in November. The MADIS and L-MADIS, a light version, are key to protecting disparate, disaggregated units from a range of airborne threats.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Back to 13-Marine squads and a new company for infantry battalions
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The 13-Marine squad is back, and the Corps is creating a new company within the infantry battalion to meet its modern war-fighting needs. Commandant Gen. Eric Smith announced those changes Monday at the Navy League's annual Sea, Air and Space Exposition. The fighting unit had grown to 15 Marines during infantry battalion experiments in recent years. That included adding an assistant squad leader and a squad systems operator to manage the many sensing and firing platforms being added to the unit's arsenal. Dropping back to the 13-Marine configuration still gives Marines more personnel than the standard nine-soldier U.S. Army squad. It also returns the squad to its previous size, but instead with a sergeant, rather than a staff sergeant in charge of three fire teams and an organic precision fires specialist in the ranks. The infantry battalion will also see the formation of a reconnaissance and fires company outside of the headquarters and service company ranks. That new company will include the battalion's 81mm mortars, organic precision fires, such as drones, and the scout platoon for reconnaissance assets, Smith said. The new Marine infantry battalion is slimmer, saltier and more techy The decision was made this past week, the commandant said. When the Corps concluded phase one of its Infantry Battalion experiments in 2023, it reduced the size of the infantry battalion from 965 Marines to 811 and added new technologies for sensing, striking, communication and power generation. Each of the battalion's three rifle companies hold individual operations, signal, logistics, electronic warfare and medical sections. Recent plans also called for a Navy corpsman available for each squad. The Marine Corps first unveiled the 15-Marine configuration in 2018. Prior to that, the service had used the 13-Marine squad model since at least the 1950s, with three fire teams of four Marines and a squad leader. In 2018, then-Commandant Gen. Robert Neller initially announced he would cut the squad from 13 to 12. That changed after his own experiments recommended otherwise. The 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, had conducted six months of experimentation with new configurations and gear. Following that work, an article published in the professional journal Marine Corps Gazette recommended a 15-Marine squad. Iran uses an even larger formation — a 16-soldier squad with a squad leader, sniper, a two-soldier rocket team and three fire teams of four soldiers, all with automatic rifles, according 'Infantry Building Blocks,' published in a 2018 issue of Military Review. The same article described China's dismounted infantry squads as formations of nine to ten soldiers devoted to anti-armor missions. Before the Ukraine War, Russia had centered even their dismounted squads around the use of either a BMP infantry fighting vehicle, which is tracked, or a BTR wheeled armored personnel carrier, according to 'The Russian Way of War,' published by the U.S. Army University Press.
