General Berger is one of the most insightful military leaders out there. James Holmes, who teaches at the Naval War College and wrote the book Red Star over the Pacific with Toshi Yoshihara, characterizes Berger as a counter revolutionary.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... airs-86361I watched the video of Berger at the Heritage Foundation and was struck by how open minded he is. He does not believe in sacred cows in designing the force for 2030. At the end of the Q and A an audience member asked about reevaluating the need for a Marine organic fixed wing Tac Air capability, a question which would send a few on this forum and other to the deep end. Berger didn't belittle or dismiss the question outright. He responded by saying that everything is on the table as the reality is that they will need to trade some existing capabilities for future capabilities which is more suited to the threat. They need to go through the process to determine what stays and what goes.
He reiterated the importance of what the planning guidance calls the stand-in force, which will operate in a distributed manner within the enemy's engagement envelope. It will serve to deter and defend against peer threats, reassure allies, and provide certain capabilities which cannot be provided at stand off ranges.
"The Stand-in Forces concept is designed to restore the strategic initiative to naval forces and empower our allies and partners to successfully confront regional hegemons that infringe on their territorial boundaries and interests. Stand-in Forces are designed to generate technically disruptive, tactical stand- in engagements that confront aggressor naval forces with an array of low signature, affordable, and risk-worthy platforms and payloads. Stand-in forces take advantage of the relative strength of the contemporary defense and rapidly-emerging new technologies to create an integrated maritime defense that is optimized to operate in close and confined seas in defiance of adversary long-range precision “stand-off capabilities.”"
The survivability of the stand in force will depend on the ability to disperse, but the effectiveness of dispersal as an concept will greatly depend on the range of combat weapon systems. If an anti ship cruise missile only has a range of 100 nm, its utility will be limited. These systems need to be able to disperse, hide, and have the range to mass fires. This is something they will need to address in designing the new force.
Operating the F-35B from EABOs seems to go against the criteria for the stand-in force. Is it affordable and a risk-worthy planform? It might be, depending on its role and impact. Berger has endorsed EABOs and using LHD/LHAs as light carrier in his planning guidance. It will be interesting see what B/C mix they decide on. He specifically raised the issue if more is needed from the Marines to support carrier air wings. The number of tac air squadrons assigned to each carrier wing was reduced by 1 after the end of the Cold War. If the Marines went with a 50/50 mix of Bs and Cs they would end up with ten F-35C squadrons. This would be enough for the Navy to increase the number of fighter squadron in each CVW to 5.
The Navy needs to decide and explain how CSGs will fight in a peer conflict. The defense of Japan and U.S. bases in the region figures prominently. But what what will be their role once the U.S. begins offensive operations? Will they main be there to support AF bombers, or is there a different role they could perform? Does the CVW need to be redesigned for the new roles it will need to perform?