Sea Control - Sea Control 555 - Infantry Battalions as Sensor Webs for the Fleet

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Links1. "Infantry Battalions as Sensor Webs for the Fleet," by Major Zachary Schwartz, Proceedings, September 2024.2. The Connecting File website.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Hello, shipmates, and welcome back to the board, Sea Control. I'm your co-host, Brian Krug, and my guest today is Major Zachary Schwartz of the United States Marine Corps. We'll be discussing his recent article, Infantry Battalions as Sensor Webs for the Fleet, which appeared in the September 2024 edition of United States Naval Institute's Proceedings Magazine. As a reminder, all views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any other organization with which we are affiliated. So, hey, Zach, welcome aboard. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your professional

background? Sir, I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me on, first and foremost. I really appreciate the opportunity to get on the net with you, and hopefully I can offer something decent to your audience. So a little bit about my background. I was commissioned back in 2012. I went to the basic school, like all good young Marine officers, TBS 5-12. I was selected to be an infantry officer upon graduation. And then unfortunately, while I was training to get ready to go to the infantry officer's course, which is the next school that we would go to for infantry guys, I ended up getting hurt in a training accident, kind of a freak accident involving in Osprey. Some of your listeners might know that story. I got involved with PME, though,

after that, which was a huge win. I was kind of sitting on my butt, healing up with a broken leg, trying to figure out how the hell I could stay in the fight. The director of IOC was a really good guy, a gentleman named Major Scott Cuomo, currently Colonel Cuomo, got me teed up with some folks over Marine Corps University, got me involved with professional military education, specifically teaching military case studies, using military history to teach better decision-making. From there, I was back on track, got caught up with my lieutenant time spent at Victor 2-6, so Camp Lejeune, and then a short stint with the G-3 at 2nd Marine Division before heading back to TBS as an instructor this time.

So I got the opportunity to go be a warfighting instructor for about two and a half years. Then I went to MCCC, which is the Army's equivalent to the Expeditionary Warfare School. Maneuvered Captain's Career Course is the acronym. Really, really good education to be a company commander. Straight from there, I went to Victor 3-7, so 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines out in 29 Palms, California. Got to that battalion, immediately deployed to Oak now as a company commander. And then once we got home, did some more times company commander, and then eventually became the opso for 3-7 in time for their next deployment to Australia.

On my way to command and staff, got selected on the tail end of, by the time of 29 Palms, I got selected and told that I was going to be head of the Pentagon for a one-year assignment working for the Department of the Navy. Finished that up, fortunately school, they saved my spot, very thankful for that, and just started over at Command and Staff College this past summer, and now we're in the thick of it. Awesome. Hey, that's a great bio. Appreciate the rundown. And more than anything, I was happy to hear about the Okinawa experience. I myself am a two-time Okinawa hand, and that's very relevant to everything pertaining to the Pacific and a lot of the maritime security issues that we discuss here on Sea Control. So, hey, in your author's biography, in Proceedings, it noted something that I wanted to give you an opportunity to highlight as well. It noted that you're one of the founders and an editor at The Connecting File, and that is a journal for infantry leaders that publishes on Substack. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, how you got into it, what The Connecting File does for the fleet? Definitely, sir, and I appreciate the chance for this shameless plug. That's a huge win, and I will be sure to include a link for you if you get a chance to put it in your show notes for anyone who's interested.

But the connecting file goes back to a buddy of mine, Jeff, and I were at MCCC together, and this is when the COVID pandemic hit. So we're locked down, we're in an apartment together, and we're studying, we're working on professional military education. We know we're going to go be company commanders, and we're looking for as many resources as we can get to be as smart and ready for command as possible. We're just sitting there playing a lot of war games, doing a lot of whiteboard work. And Jeff and I came up with this idea for a newsletter modeled on John Boyd's fighter weapons newsletter, if anybody's ever heard of that. But it would basically be a newsletter produced by folks within the infantry community spreading TTPs, really just good gouge on things that are happening right now in companies all over the fleet that we want to get out there for the greater community of practice. Some examples, maybe you've got a new way to secure or employ M320 grenade launchers.

Maybe you came up with some badass training for your company that was absolutely over the moon and incredibly creative and incredibly effective. Let's get those ideas out there. Let's get them out there now. We're not the Gazettes. We're not proceedings. We don't have a real lengthy editorial process. It's pretty quick. It's pretty down and dirty. And most of the articles we put out are raw and you can read them in one bathroom break when you're at the office on a busy Monday. And you've got something actually useful that you can take out and you can give to your Marines time now to hopefully make them better. So like you mentioned, sir, we're on Substack. We've got about 1,400 subscribers at this point. We're 100 percent free. We're not taking any money. We're not interested in that.

This is about making Marines better and setting Marine leaders up to better take care of those riflemen who are going to go close with the objective and everybody else in their formations. It started off as a PDF that we would just send around to people, and now we've evolved to Substack. So way better format. And we've also got a podcast now, and then we do TDGs every month. So tactical decision games give our readers the opportunity to look at a scenario, come up with a plan, and then use that as PME, hopefully with their leaders and their formations. Hopefully that sort of scratches the itch, sir. Absolutely. So first of all, well done. That's an incredible initiative. And for listeners of this podcast who are also readers of SimSec, I think the value of professional writing is something that perhaps we take for granted.

But what's really important to know is the form and flavors and just how many different media there are in which people can contribute. And it's important that listeners and people who might be aspiring to write don't assume like it's this giant wall they have to get after if they want to go first, shoot for the moon for their dream journal or publication. And even then, I think we overhype it ourselves and create self-imposed intimidating factors. But your outlet, the connecting file, I think is great in that that platoon commander, that platoon sergeant, that NCO, that young Lance Corporal coming up with, as you noted, some pretty rockin' training, just has a cool idea. They can get it out there, and it can be shared with the entire fleet with a really rapid flash to bang because that's the intent. The intent isn't win a Pulitzer Prize. The intent is get something out there now. So that's phenomenal.

And so for those listeners interested in that, please do take a look at the show notes. We'll include that link for you. Okay, so let's get to the meat and potatoes. Let's pivot to your article. Can you walk us through the big blue arrows on your article's core thesis, right? So what's your elevator pitch? Absolutely, sir. So elevator pitch really boils down to two lines of effort, and I'll summarize those here for the team.

So infantry battalions can conduct recon and scouting in support of the fleet in expeditionary advanced base operations and as stand-in forces. Those battalions, they should be trained to this now. And they should be doing that through a reinvigorated focus on scouting, patrolling, training, and education. On top of that, not only does this make us better at expeditionary advanced base operations, serving as stand-in forces, but good old-fashioned scouting, patrolling, what the Brits call good old-fashioned soldiering, If you've ever heard that term before, it's timeless and it's going to make us just better at doing standard infantry stuff as well. Those traditional missions that Marines have been doing since 1775. Second line of effort is this training and education can and should provide an innovation laboratory where everyone in our formations gets the chance to put out ideas that are creative solutions to some of the toughest problem sets.

And that goes from our lieutenants to our captains, staff NCOs, all the way down to the most junior members of that formation. They need to get the opportunity to look at tough problems and come up with solutions that might have slipped by some folks who, I hate to say it, but have been a little bit more institutionalized. They've been doing things the Marine Corps way for a long time, whereas that Lance Corporal who recently joined up might look at that problem in a way that the rest of us just can't see, and that might just be the decisive advantage. So, like I said, so really two lines of effort there. It's the scouting and patrolling for the fleet with the training associated and then turning that training and education into an innovation laboratory to make us more creative warfighters. Rocking. I definitely appreciate that elevator pitch and summarizing it with two lines of effort. I think that'll resonate with a lot of U.S. Marine Corps listeners in particular, but the larger audience as well, I'm sure. So when you talk about scouting and sensing and support or scouting, patrolling in support of the fleet, I think it's important for the listener to understand some of the other contexts there, which you discuss in your article. But let's unpack some of that here. Right. So this is within the context of the stand in forces concept or the SIF, S-I-F concept. And so if I'm part of the fleet and I'm going to be in a fight, say, in the Pacific, as an example, right, you've got my attention.

But for that context, I think we need to dive a little bit deeper on a couple of ideas. Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and the Stand-in Forces concept. So can you build the context for the article within the Littoral Combat Team? What is that formation? Where does it fit within the Stand-in Force concept or anything pertaining to EABO or SIF? I'll let you drive where you want to on this one. Absolutely, sir. So this is I feel like this is my this is my for all the command and staff instructors who are watching.

They're going to be quizzing me when I get back into the classroom. So we'll I'll give you my best shot. So Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and Standing Forces in a nutshell, it's it's forward deployed Marine units that exist within the enemy's weapons engagement zone. And they are going to be their low signature. They're survivable. But they but they also pack a punch there. They're not just there to get rolled over, they're there to sense, they're there to potentially provide fires, and they're also there to provide support. We're looking at something as simple as a FARP or a fuel farm, a place where friendly forces can draw logistics in order to sustain their culminating point, push that culminating point further in a fight within the Pacific. As far as the MLR, the Marine Littoral Regiment, a lot of your listeners are probably somewhat familiar with this concept. It's definitely some of the new hotness in the Marine Corps right now, and rightfully so.

The MLR is Regimental Size Formation Marine Littoral Regiment, which is going to break down into three key elements. There's the Littoral Combat Team, which you mentioned, sir, which is going to have three rifle companies and then one battery of anti-ship missiles. There's the Low Altitude Air Battalion. Excuse me, Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion. It's, bottom line, it's a formation designed to, I'm getting myself all confused here. That's why it's so new. So many acronyms.

So many acronyms. Yeah, a lot of acronyms. So you've got an Air Defense Battalion, which is going to be able to conduct, it's got an air control battery, as well as a ground-based air defense battery. And then you've got a Logistics Battalion there as well with logistics companies designed to support the formation.

The focus for this is going to be on the littoral combat team. The units that I'm envisioning conducting the scouting and patrolling in support of the fleet as they conduct expeditionary advanced base operations and serve as standard forces are going to be those rifle companies. Those rifle companies are going to look a lot like the rifle companies that have been traditionally employed in the Marine Corps. And as we'll talk about a little bit later on, training and scouting and patrolling can be hit or miss in formations. And my argument is that if we really focus on enhancing those skill sets and training and educating for those skill sets, these Marines can become a potent sensor web for the fleet that they're there to support in the first place. They shouldn't just be sitting there on post standing guard for a missile battery. They should be out serving as eyes and ears for the fleet and hopefully helping develop decisive action. So as I kind of bungled and butchered that description of the MLR, EABO and SIF,

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the Marine Corps is actually doing a really good job hosting that information on Marines.mil on their website. They've actually got a handy tab now, which breaks out everything with some really good graphics about how this works, where the Marine Corps is right now and where we plan on going. So hopefully I pass the command and staff test. If not, I'm sure I'll hear about it tomorrow once I get into the classroom. I'll knock a few points off for fumbling some of the acronyms, but you described the concept with a plum. So well done. There's another conversation there that I'll ask perhaps just Marine Corps listeners to dwell on. And it's not the topic of this episode, but you alluded to it as far as the way the Marine Corps has publicly presented this information, everything from the initial drop of Force Design 2030 and all the elements and other supporting documents that have come out since then. Again, I've only been doing this 21 years, and I don't say that facetiously. I say that in the terms of, you know, the Marine Corps has been around a minute longer than either of us have been alive.

But in that time, this is probably the most concerted and transparent effort to deliberately and openly present all the information as these new warfighting concepts are developing. And it's something that's just remarkably impressive. And I hope it sets the bar for our service for the future and perhaps for other services and other militaries across the world with which we're allied and partnered. So let's circle back to what you just said about the formation. So that was a really good background for the listener for the warfighting concepts and for the 06 and 05 level formations, that is the MLR and the littoral battalions underneath it that play a key part in that concept. But there's another bit of background we need to unpack. So you started to talk about scouting and patrolling. So your article, it proposes unique ways to employ Marines as scouts within the littoral combat team.

So let's talk about scouting itself. How is scouting trained in the Marine Corps time now, and how are Marines presently employed as scouts during operations? Sir, so the way scouting is trained, it really begins with our entry-level training for our enlisted Marines and our officers. So our enlisted Marines are going to go to the School of Infantry, where they're going to learn their craft as infantrymen, and they're going to do scouting exercises. They're going to patrol exercises called a PEX is a term that we'll throw around where they're going out and they're actually rehearsing and learning how to conduct scouting and patrolling on the officer side at the infantry officers courts and at the basic school as well. They are also learning scouting. They're getting platform classes. They're going out in the tree line. They're doing field exercises and they're learning all those good old fashioned infantry skills from there. This is the schoolhouses are not the problem. Schoolhouses tend to be doing it pretty darn well.

From there, it's going to go to these young Marines, whether they're officers or enlisted, are going to go to the fleet. They're going to go to their infantry battalions, whether they're littoral combat teams or traditional infantry battalions. And from what I've seen and what I've experienced talking with other OPSOs, talking with company commanders, and then all of our Marines, is that scouting, patrolling, it tends to kind of fall by the wayside. And it's not going away completely, right? But it's on the stuff that an infantry battalion needs to conduct to get out the door for a deployment. That schedule of available time to train tends to fill up very quickly. And the things that tend to get the most focus are going to be live fire, company-supported night attacks, battalion offensive and defensive operations, platoon night attacks. And these things are big, time-consuming, and extremely resource-intensive events, and rightfully so. They're incredibly important. But while that's happening, the scouting, patrolling, the more mundane, routine, dare I say, unsexy stuff that Marines are going to be doing every single day to conduct reconnaissance and then conduct security for their own positions, those skills are going to start to atrophy.

As we start to focus more on, okay, well, how do we get ready for the next night attack on range 400? How do we get ready for the next 410 or 410 alpha as platoon commanders? Those big events tend to steal and suction away the focus. And before you know it, we are a formation that's really good at live fire deliberate attacks against prepared defensive positions. We're good at digging into defense, but we're not really good at locating the enemy, conducting scouting and patrolling to identify potential targets for higher headquarters, something that we'll probably talk a little bit more about. And we tend to assume that that training is happening because it really falls on a lot of our NCOs and more junior officers, our lieutenants. But even if it is happening, sometimes it's not happening super well. Sometimes they're just going to the backyard and chasing each other around. And there isn't a lot of greatness happening there. And there's not a whole lot of learning. I think if we can structure that training, if we can focus on it more and give them a better mission set to drive at, then I think we'll be moving in the right direction.

but we cannot let those skills, that unsexy, painful patrolling, that unsexy, painful scouting, we can't let that atrophy. We need to be just as good at doing that stuff as we are doing the deliberate attacks, deliberate defense, particularly if we are a formation that is going to successfully complete, successfully execute EABO and standard force operations, if that sort of makes sense, sir. It absolutely does. So just for the listeners, you did mention a couple of ranges. You alluded to range 400, for example, just for the context, that just references a very common range that a lot of infantry battalions and formations will roll through and commonly train on. So it's almost like a common touch point among, in particular, combat arms marines and infantry marines.

And I appreciate your other point about unstructured training. And I think that's, there's really a leadership lesson there in terms of maybe we have an intent and we have an assumption about what type of training is going to happen. And maybe even say that intent, like, hey, double dogs, or hey, lieutenant, or whoever, I want the Marines to train to this, to this standard to be able to do this task. But you don't do that supervision step, right? And then when you finally take a peek, because you see the Marines aren't performing to standard, the training wasn't what you envisioned. And really, is that a fault of the young Marines at task? Or is that really a fault of yourself for not providing that structure? And more and more, in particular,

my current position, I'm becoming a fan of the phrase, there's no such thing as an implied task. And I think we can all identify with that to a degree. So let's get to your thesis of the article, like the real so what of the article. So you're proposing to train Marines within the littoral combat team as scouts for sensor webs for the fleet. And so for the listener, when we say sensor web really that's you know connecting many sensors uh to shooters so if you are if i'm a member of that littoral combat team and perhaps i'm employing a sensor or my eyeballs and i am able to see a potential target i can relay that information in some way shape or form through the network and that could be any number of radio links that could be

tactical data links that could be through cloud computing to some sort of thing that's going to prosecute the target or could whether that is a marine asset whether that's a navy asset an air force asset maybe a bilateral another the asset of another service of a country another country um that's that's that sensor web to the kill web right closing all that and so these these scouts could play a pivotal role in that right so scouts for sensor webs within a littoral combat team unpack that for us what are the tasks that you would train these scouts to how would you evaluate them? How would they work in real-world application? So big question there, sir. What I'm going to do is I'm going to break it down into three pieces. The first piece is going to be

really foundational, and it's going to begin with a reinvigorated effort to train Marines to basic scouting and patrolling, and to do it all the time, and to do it well. Things that we would be training to, recon tasking, principles of reconnaissance, do fire team leaders, and yes, I said fire team leaders, not just squad leaders, the basic maneuver elements of a rifle company, do they understand what a named area of interest is? Do they understand how to reconnoiter a named area of interest? Let's not even look at an NMLR or a fleet. Let's look at in support of their battalion.

because with the way the world is going, with the way that the future is looking, a commander is going to want as much recon as he can get his hands on. And UAS isn't always going to cut the mustard. Hire isn't always going to be able to surge you a reconnaissance team that's specially trained, specially designed to support you. A lot of your reconnaissance is going to be internal to your formation. So before we even talk about supporting the fleet, let's realize that being a good infantry marine means being good at scouting and patrolling and

let's train to those skill sets to include so we talked about the NAIs we talked about understanding principles of reconnaissance types of patrols but also basic field craft how are we how are we camouflaging ourselves to miniaturize our signature so we've got the highest possible chance of survival or winning chance contact what about calm how confident are we in utilizing various forms of communications, again, all the way down to the fire team level. Yes, I'm talking junior Marines, and I'm talking about training them in everything from SATCOM to HF to VHF to signal flags, so whatever they need to be able to connect that kill web that we talked about in order to make decisive results happen, we should be training to that.

Another piece of that would be field sketching. Can we sketch what we're actually looking at so we can relay that information uh if by and by nothing else by runner uh so we can so we can run information in the most bare bones analog way possible and then can we win chance contact if this patrol goes out and the enemy is launching a counter reconnaissance effort or they run into something that becomes some type of contact can they fight their way out of that contact while keeping their heads about them and then reporting what the hell they actually just ran into so they can hopefully again drive some decisive actions from their higher headquarters. So that's that first foundational step. That's that baseline training. From there, we can incorporate and

graft on missions that we would execute in support of the fleet. So like that LCT would execute in support of the fleet, in support of the MLR. What if we took these now squads, teams that can patrol independently, and we tasked them with recon maritime corridor X in order to identify adversary shipping, basic task and purpose statement. And then we sent them out to execute that problem set as part of a training exercise. And I can already hear the people in 29 Palms saying, maritime corridors, we don't have those. This is the desert. We can't train to that. You were you were an option on 29 palms i know i'm well aware of that but we're also really good at imagining things and we imagine water in 29 palms all the time and you can easily take a

corridor in the delta t which you know a part of 29 palms is a terrain feature and say all right that's a maritime corridor i need you to establish a hide site uh there in order to recon for whatever asset you're attempting to reconnaissance for so we've got the baseline foundational training. We graphed on the missions that an LCT would execute. And it starts with that team or that squad that's conducting the patrol. But how are we relaying the information, like you talked about, sir, to the actual shooter or the actual decision maker? Is it going to be by HF? Is it going to be by SATCOM? Is it going to be by semaphore, signal light? How are we doing that? And let's rehearse the entire cycle. So the first time we're doing it isn't when we are out in contact in an enemy's WES trying to figure this thing out, realizing that we spent all of our time doing range 400 and maybe should have focused on this maritime scouting problem set.

So we're grafting on these missions that we would be doing in support of the fleet. And the next part, third part, I would say, would be the technology side to it. Understand there's limitations to the Mark I eyeball. Are we properly equipping these formations to reach out and detect as effectively, as efficiently as possible? I know I'm jumping ahead a little bit, and we're going to talk about some of that tech. But the real-world application that I see is every single fire team, every single fire team, not just squad, keep driving that home, every corporal leading that fire team or sergeant leading that fire team, depending on your formation, more than likely corporal or lance corporal, is capable of receiving that reconnaissance tasking, taking their team out as part of a sensor web, and then conducting reconnaissance, relaying what they see to the fire team. their higher headquarters in order to drive either decisions, maybe somebody needs to take a shot at it. Again, like you said, sir, either maybe Marine, maybe Air Force, maybe a foreign partner or ally

is going to use that information. But are the most basic formations within our companies, are they capable of doing that? That's where I think we need to get. And my dream is that we've got a squad with one one fire team has a radar and one fire team has a puma small uas and one fire team has some optics and that squad is then tasked to conduct reconnaissance of a maritime corridor and they push out they identify the terrain that's going to best allow them to utilize the kit they have to achieve the mission that they've been tasked with they use redundancy they use queuing they use mixing all the stuff that they've learned from good scouting and patrolling, good reconnaissance training.

They see what they're looking for. They relay that information to the platoon commander who can then relay that information to the company, pushing it up. And then worst comes to worst, we get into a gunfight. These are infantry Marines. They've been trained and chomping at the bit to close with and destroy the enemy

since they were in boot camp. They are ready for a fight. These formations can ambush, fight as light infantry as they withdraw, link up with their higher headquarters. And before you know it, that adversary is attacking into maybe a company, maybe even a full-size battalion defense that is at the very least able to delay them, but potentially able to actually defeat that threat and then take back that terrain. I started to get a little fired up there, sir, but hopefully

that cut the mustard. The enthusiasm absolutely came through. I definitely appreciate the passion and I hope that listeners who are focused on the littorals in any way, regardless of what their might be see immediately the value of what you're talking about and you know noting the caution of a maritime fight is not what you see in ukraine and we don't want to be too uh overzealous in some of the lessons we apply from uh say ukraine to the pacific uh some of the concepts you just described i think a lot of listeners if they're paying attention through a lot of osint and a lot of uh just things you can find on x or twitter uh you see a lot of that footage of uh ukrainian forces is applying concepts that sound a lot like what you just described and now again use the

power of your imagination imagine they're in a littoral environment vice uh in in ukraine fighting russians and you can see incredible applications that are already proving uh their worth so so that's fantastic so i'm excited to get to the tech piece that you mentioned but first uh another important piece i think we would be remiss not to discuss it is training and evaluating that so Your article also proposes an EAB, or an Expeditionary Advanced Base Exercise, to be conducted during a Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluation, or a MCRI. So for the listeners, what is a MCRI, and how would this EAB exercise fit into? So a MCRI, the easiest way to describe it is the certification exercise where a higher headquarters says that an infantry battalion is good to deploy. They give them the thumbs up.

What that consists of is typically a week to a week and a half or potentially two weeks of pretty intensive exercises where a training cadre or really evaluation cadre from that higher headquarters is with that battalion watching how they fight and ensuring that they are fully capable of accomplishing their mission and they are fully ready from a training standpoint to deploy. What that might consist of, it's going to vary based off of unit, but you'll probably see platoon attacks day and night. You'll probably see company attacks day and night, some type of mechanized exercise as well. You will also likely see up to battalion level command and control exercise and offense and defense type scenarios with or without troops. So it might just be like a C2 exercise where everybody sets up the architecture and conducts C2, or it might be a full live fire battalion defense or offense. Notice how I didn't say patrol. There's not a lot of specific patrolling and scouting evaluation typically happening within the McCree. The EABX would be a patrolling exercise specifically oriented on the Expeditionary Advanced Base Missions, Stand Enforced Missions, and evaluating that battalion's ability to push out and execute those missions. So can this battalion actually seize various EABs, defend those EABs for all types of missions, whether it's fires, whether it's sensing, whether it's logistics, and then command and control those formations?

That is, if a battalion is going to go out and execute EABO and fight a stand-in forces, I think McCree almost needs to have something like that within it. And I get that there's not a lot of time. I get that McCree is packed. Trust me, I've been an opso. I've been on the receiving end of some pretty painful exercises where we were busy up to the last minute. But even if you can't fit in a full EABX, grafting on some type of patrolling exercise, which is designed to mirror, designed to evaluate the battalion's ability to sense in support of higher headquarters, that is probably going to be value-added, and it's probably not going to be that hard. Even if you're doing a live fire defense with some creative safety backstops, you can absolutely incorporate non-fire or blank fire patrolling where patrols are pushing out and conducting reconnaissance in support of that defense before, okay, bring the patrols in, admin stand down, issue live ammunition, and then you do an actual live training event. That's possible. We can 100% do that with the right safety backstops. Obviously, the EABX is best. If we can do that, that would be awesome.

But at the very least, our battalion should be getting after this scouting, patrolling problem set to ensure that they're fully ready to execute that mission if it comes up, if that's how they're going to fight. And that is how we intend to fight at least some of our formations in the Pacific. And I've seen this work. I've seen when I was an officer on the Marine Rotational Force in Darwin, our battalion was forward deployed in Darwin, Australia. We sent a company on an EABX where they flew to South Goulburn Island, if anyone's familiar with the Northern Territory of Australia. And they conducted, they built an expeditionary advanced base where they conducted patrolling operations, where they patrolled against a live thinking adversary. And then they even did outreach with the local population. There was a drought going on, so the logistics element lent us some water purifiers and some specialists, and we actually purified water for the local population on that island while getting excellent training at setting up what ended up being an anti-air defense EAB.

We can 100% do these things, and we can 100% do them even if there's no water around with a little bit of imagination and the right safety bag stops. And I would argue that if we're not doing it, if we're not training the scouting and patrolling at the very least during our McCrees, then we're missing out on some critical opportunities to make ourselves as ready as possible. Hopefully that sort of captures it, sir. Absolutely. Hey, great breakdown there. And what you just described as far as building the exercise, that element of it into a McCree to a certified exercise, that goes back to your previous point as far as ensuring that you're articulating the training the way you want it to go. Right. So the McCree as a certifying exercise is like the Marine Corps institutionalization of this is my expectation because we build these formations and we have mission essential tasks. The things that they're expected to be able to do. I mean, you've been in ops, so you've worked on DERS a lot. I, as a CEO, have certified DERS. So we know there's a lot of creativity that people can put into how they interpret some of that data to say, hey, I'm good to go.

And you can make similar criticisms about McCree, but it's just one more thing where the actual requirements are much more granular in detail, where other evaluators come and they're the ones assessing you. And so that's just a way to ensure that if this formation is supposed to do this thing, that it can, in fact, do the thing. So great points all around. Okay, so let's get to perhaps what some of the listeners are really salivating for right now. So your article, it raises the possible critique that Marines looking for ships in the tradition of the Coast Watchers with the Mark I eyeballs and a pair of binos, that that might have some limitations. But you raise the point that today's technology can extend their ability to sense their targets, especially in the littorals like ships. So your article calls out recent examples such as operations conducted by Task Force 61-2 and Marine Rotational Force Southeast Asia. Can you discuss these examples in a bit more detail?

Like, what are these units? What do they do? How did they conduct scouting or sensing operations that can be done under the construct that you're proposing? Sure. So the MRFC and CC1-2, they're two formations that really pioneered the use of some of the technology that we already mentioned a little bit for maritime scouting, maritime domain awareness. scouting in support of the fleet. There are Marine rotational formations. I believe Murph C falls under one MEF

and 61-2 falls under two MEF, but they conducted this mission. They went out and they did it. We're talking about everything that we already mentioned, the small teams of Marines with a radar and a small UAS going out, identifying good terrain

and conducting a mission to recon an NAI or a maritime piece of terrain for enemy ships, or not enemy ships, but potential enemy ships to train to that. They did this. I mean, this was sergeants, this was corporals, this was lieutenants, this was junior members of our formations being tasked, going out, sensing, and then relaying that information, and then utilizing that information to either build potential shooting options or at least inform a higher headquarters decision-making cycle. And some of the, you know, getting down to the granular level, some of the stuff that they were utilizing is the PUMA small UAS, which is already organic to all of our infantry battalions. Think

of it like if you were a kid and you were playing with air hogs. It's that, you know, little airplane that you pumped up and then you spun the propeller and you threw it and got caught on the neighbor's roof except now it's it's remote controlled and it flies a lot further it's actually pretty reliable and has a pretty darn good optic they're putting that thing in the air and they're patrolling over some piece of maritime terrain we'll say it's a a strait or the space between two islands a gulf something like that and they are sensing they're looking they see something they can't really confirm what it is uh it's pretty far away maybe it's a little bit foggy now they've got a SIMRAD, which is a small, I think like commercial maritime radar that you would see on a fishing

boat out here in like the Chesapeake Bay or anywhere. And they set that up on a mast, and they're employing that, and they are, between these two assets, identifying like, okay, yes, that is a surface contact. And then maybe they pull out some optics, weather clears up a little bit, and they can confirm like the nature of that contact and what it is. But either way, they are using these assets together and creatively to drive, to build information, to drive decisions for their higher headquarters. And this is happening right now. I mean, you can go on DVIDS, you can go on Marines.mil, and you can see photos of young Marines setting up SIMRADS, flying UAS, and walking around with big binos, peeping on ships that could potentially one day be enemy ships.

I mean, that is going to be invaluable in the future. And it's happening. It's literally happening right now. The future is now. It's happening right now. And our junior Marines are the ones who are figuring it out. And Mark 1 Eyeball is great. You can see a lot. Our Coast Watchers did a ton for us in World War II, if you're a history fan. But that other equipment is going to allow them to push that horizon line further and further back so we can build better opportunities, build solutions, and hopefully hold the adversary at risk if it comes to that.

Hopefully that kind of caught it, Saran. A good segue is you mentioned the work that our young Marines are doing here. And a really interesting notion that you bring up in the article is giving our junior Marines who they're smart, you know, they're savvy, they're digital natives, opportunities to experiment and drive innovation from the bottom up. And again, you know, history buffs, right? This is a historical strong point for the Marine Corps and, frankly, for young Americans, regardless of service and any conflict they participated in or, you know, in interwar periods. Right. So you mentioned doing this also with support from the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. Can you elaborate on all that and describe how it might look in execution? That is specifically, how can we enable young Marines to innovate in this area?

So this is probably the part of my article I was most passionate about. If I could, I would have probably written a whole other article about it. Maybe I will. This training cycle that we've talked about where the fire teams, the squads, the platoons, the companies, the battalions are focused on these patrolling exercises. They know they're going to get evaluated in their McCree, so they're training for it. They're getting ready. This entire training cycle can be an amazing petri dish for scouting, patrolling, innovation, and creative solutions to this tough problem of sensing in the maritime domain. How do we do that?

How do we turn this thing into a petri dish? I think one of the ways you do it is all of this gear, the sim rads, the small UAS, all of that stuff, and maybe even some stuff that is totally off the wall. like the semaphore flags or a bunch of copper wire that went to old field phones. Why don't we give this to the junior members of that formation? And as we progress through the training cycle, we give them this essentially a Lego box, right, of like toys, of stuff and say, hey, here's these things. Here's their capability. Here's what they do. Now we need you to accomplish this mission. And this is what you have. You get to pack out what you need, identify what you think will work. And let's go out and let's sandbox this thing. Let's see if this works.

Okay, so the comms going to go out, VHF doesn't work over that long distance. Oh, you brought flashlights and you can use light signals to talk to ridge to ridge, which, you know, you're basically you're lighting the beacons all the way back to Rohan. You know what I mean? Like you're coming up with solutions that maybe all of us have completely overlooked because we've been doing this for a long time and our heads are so far down and trying to figure it out that we missed something that might be right in front of our face. And the folks who can figure this out, it's like you said, it's those digital natives. They're excited. They want to serve. People talk crap about the young people coming into our formations. That's BS. These people, you said it, they're digital natives. They're excited. They want to make a difference. So give them the opportunity to make a difference. Give them the tools, give them the toys, give them the stuff that you thought was worthless or wouldn't work and see what they come up with. And maybe it's maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's bunk. Maybe it's silly. But I'll bet you that someone comes up with something that that that works, that is a novel solution to that tough problem that allows us to gain a march on the on the enemy. You look at the innovation, you look at Tarla is a great story, right? They're trying to get the tanks ashore at Tarla. One junior Marine. It has the thought that, hey, I'm going to guide, I'm going to swim ahead of this tank, so I'm going to mark the holes in the coral so we stop drowning tankers here.

And lo and behold, they get one tank or two tanks, a handful of armor ashore, which makes a difference on Tarawa. Those people, those junior Marines, they're in our formations right now. We need to give them the tools. We need to give them the opportunity to innovate. So if we graft on these opportunities, these little Lego box activities, if you will, to points in that training cycle, let's see what we come up with. Let's see what we find and let's record those findings and let's identify ideas that maybe didn't quite make it across the finish line, but could use a little bit of polish. And maybe that's the solution as well. Maybe that becomes the opportunity to gain a march on the enemy. It might not be fully there yet with a little bit of development. Maybe we get it across the finish line.

The folks who've been really good about helping us get stuff across the finish line and do all this have been the folks in Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. When the Scout Cyber Platoon started to go away, there was a whole lot of experimentation with the Scout Platoon out in 29 Palms. So McWill, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab was a part of that. They've been at the forefront of all of the infantry battalion experimentation that's been happening. They're the ones who are doing a lot of the experimentation with the SIMRADS, with the small UAS, with pushing this technology out. What I'm arguing is what I'm saying is they're doing good work and we should be doing more of that. We should be expanding that cadre. We should be encouraging everyone at McGill to go out to an infantry battalion with a box of cool stuff and see what they find.

Take that scientific method, take what they're trying to accomplish, and pitch it to that team and see what they come up with. The more we can do that, we are catching our net wider to hopefully catch some more solutions to problems that are really freaking hard. And I know this is tough. I know McWill is tapped out. I know they've got tons of people all over the place, and they're probably listening to this right now. It's being like, does this dude realize that we are undermanned and overtasked? I get it. I 100% do. So here's what I'm thinking. Here's an idea. Maybe I'm crazy, but we've got all of

these super smart lieutenants and captains with, I don't know, mechanical engineering degrees, aero, nautical engineering degrees, who probably aren't using those degrees for a whole hell of a lot as they lead within their infantry formations. What if we took a couple of those folks and stood up innovation cells within our battalions, where we've got a smart lieutenant with a mechanical engineering degree who with a little bit of coaching from some folks in mcwill through i don't know a correspondence course uh over marine net over our educational software who who learns the scientific method gets a refresher learns what's what uh mcwill's guidance is for whatever experiment they're trying to do gets qualified to be an innovation enabler or you know a mcwill

scientist uh mad scientist whatever you want to call them and then is allowed to then run those experiments internal to that formation. So now instead of McGuill having to send people to all these formations all over the Marine Corps to cast net widely, they can train up individuals who are already probably pretty smart in the sciences to begin with on their scientific research method. And then they can receive the kit, they can receive the gear, they can test out, they can do the report, and they can do McGuill's homework for them. Send it to them, tell them what works, tell them what doesn't, and then allow innovation to happen faster and hopefully wider. So you got me wrong talking about mad scientists all over the place, but that's kind of my vision about where we can go with really tapping into the junior Marines who've got so many amazing ideas.

And in my personal opinion, I mean, they are our decisive advantage. That was an incredible vision. Definitely appreciate you really drawing it out there. Also, enormous bonus points for rolling in the Lord of the Rings reference with Rohan. So check for that. One thing I think is very useful that you when you started to get the back end of that, as far as offloading the warfighting labs work onto the unit. And as a commander, you know, you might be thinking like, wait, more work. I already got enough. Right. But really, you're leveraging organic resources you have and you're trying to solve for that problem of, hey, do we want just the institution doing it all for us?

can they so the institution certainly has a part like i think you've offered as far as hey here's some experimental objectives to get after maybe they can identify tools maybe they can't fund it but maybe the the formation can so i appreciate you mentioned just like flashlights and semaphores you know i'll take it one step further like raspberry pi a little very cheap relatively cheap computers that a lot of your marines i promise you listeners if you have marines you have at least one in your squadron or battalion that knows what i'm talking about When I say Raspberry Pi and actually is developing just organic, mechanical, robotic or computing things of any nature with that stuff. And it's very cheap and easy to do.

So I would then say another way to take it is go to that commander or commander's listening. Have those smart folks come up with the things that they want to procure. And with some of your O&M dollars, very relatively few, go to your suppo. Hey, that's a that's a legit resource. Purchase it and then enact to your vision that you just described. So there's a lot of technical opportunities there. But to be perfectly honest, as a historical-minded communications officer, nothing would make me happier than to see semaphore and carrier pigeons enabling your sensor web. So that's my crazy thought. So let me turn it back to you.

We're running up on time here. But as we look to wrap up, I have a couple more questions for you. I want to connect this to where you came from and where you're going. So first, your bio also notes that you recently served as the military assistant to the deputy undersecretary of the Navy for intelligence and security. So to the extent that you're allowed to, can you describe what that bill entailed and how it may have changed your perspective or maybe expanded your professional aperture? So the bill is definitely a mouthful, sir, but you did well. You nailed it. You definitely did better than I did with the acronyms earlier.

So kudos to you. So, but we just, I just called it Dozen INS. And yes, I was a military assistant to the deputy undersecretary. It was a blast. It was super cool. Extremely grateful for the opportunity. If any of your listeners get the opportunity

to go be a military assistant on the E-ring in the Department of the Navy, jump on it. I consider it a prelude, really, the precursor charge to command and staff. I was supposed to go to command and staff before I got selected for this thing at the last minute. I was bummed out initially, but boy, howdy, like I showed up to command and staff so much more prepared because, you know, what are we talking about right now? We're talking about strategy. We're talking about civil military relations.

Like I just lived it for a year in the E-ring as the military assistant to the senior spy in the Department of the Navy, who's also the highest ranking nonpolitical appointee civilian in the Department of the Navy. Now, his name is Victor Manila. He's the man, rock star, super humble guy who helped mentor me in a world that I never would have seen before. I mean, we were taught. So within our portfolio was all security functions, Intel functions, naval special warfare, regular warfare, all this stuff that I really didn't touch much as the quintessential dumb grunt, if you will. And now I'm getting steeped in that world. It was amazing. It was incredible. And not only was it an opportunity for me to learn and be humbled, but it was also an

opportunity for me to gain an appreciation for things like special operations, what they do for us, but also advocate for what the infantry can do for everyone else. Maybe like, oh, I don't know, some maritime sensing, maybe some support to do special operations that they weren't thinking about before. I had the opportunity to be in the room with people and make the infantry's voice heard while simultaneously getting an education that was worth its weight in gold. So awesome. I recommend it to anyone. Great wrap up. Thanks for that. And so now you transition from there to being a student at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, which is the United States Marine Corps Intermediate Level School, or it's the school for majors, essentially.

Can you talk through how the academic year, I know it's early, but how it's gone so far and perhaps highlight for our listeners who might be sister service or international officers, what opportunities might exist for them at our Command and Staff College? So if you get a chance to go to Command and Staff College, listeners, it is awesome and it is worth it. As far as opportunities, so the year has only really just begun. I'm already involved in a war gaming club, which is super cool. the opportunity to go head to head with your peers and actually like get some good feedback about how your tactical decision-making is going. Nothing like getting beat up in a World War II war game by, you know, an adjutant to really, to really humble you as an infantry officer. But like, that's what we need, right? Like that's what we should be doing right now. We should be

challenging each other. That's what you want from a school, particularly a professional military education school. Command and staff is that. And that's just one of the, that's just one of the sidebars. That's just one of the things you can do for fun. You're going to get a great education. You're going to get a master's in military science that used to be optional back in the day. Now it is mandatory. So like it or not, you're getting that master's in military science when you graduate. But that should be a huge, huge benefit. If you're not excited about that, you're probably doing the whole PME thing wrong. You're probably doing it for the wrong reasons. They give you the opportunity to study whatever you want. And they put the resources of Marine

Court University at your fingertips. It is an amazing opportunity. It is a year to just study your profession and to be a better warfighter. But the thing is, it's PME school and like all PME schools, and your military listeners know this, you get in what you get out. So if you're going to show up and just kind of, you know, drag your heels, yeah, you'll probably get through it and you'll be fine when you're going to graduate. But if you really want to get the most out of it, If you really want to look back tired and happy and say, wow, that was awesome, go all in, and I promise you won't regret it. You'll know when you need to dial it back. You'll know when those papers are coming up, but it's an opportunity to push yourself and be the best warfighter you can possibly be.

That's a great wrap-up. So finally, Zach, where can listeners find you online, and what else are you working on? What's coming next? Yeah, so I appreciate it, sir. Right now, I'm working a lot on my master's in military science. Got a couple of papers coming up. So that's that's definitely one of the timeline for as far as ongoing project. You can find us on Substack. Sir, I'll give you the link so you can post that for your listeners. But look us up. I know you mentioned Raspberry Pi, sir.

We just had an article about building a $600 means to see yourself in the spectrum and potentially utilize that in your training, utilizing that technology you're talking about. We're writing about that stuff every week in the connecting file. That's probably ongoing project number one. We're also putting out, expect to see another TDG within the next week or two. We'll see. And if you're looking for opportunities to challenge yourself, plug into the connecting file, write an order and then send it in. And if you've got a winning order, if we think yours is top dog, we'll get you published. And not just your TDG answers. If you've got a hot take, if you've got something that's really bugging you and maybe you're not sure if it's ready for the Gazette or proceedings, push it our way. It's me and a couple other Marines hanging out, pitching ideas around. We're here to help.

We want to get your ideas out there. And if it is in any way or shape, if any, if it is in any way, shape or form useful to our community practice, you can bet we are going to get it out there. I 100 percent promise you that. So between the connecting file and keeping my head above water in school, those are the big ones right now. And then, you know, taking care of three cats and my wife while we go. So it is busy, busy, busy as always here, sir. I imagine the three cats and the wife are the things that actually take most of your time, more than everything else you just described. Well, she's a better Marine. She's a better Marine than I am, sir. So, honestly, she's the one. So, maybe she's taking care of you.

That's right. Okay. Good save. Good save. Okay. Zach, thanks again for joining us. Good luck with the rest of your command and staff college. Fair winds and following seas.

To our listeners, bravo, Zulu, for tuning in, and we'll see you next time. I walked up to the barrow counter. Hey, hey, put it in the alley. There I met with Greasy Annie. Put it out the shimbo now. So help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley. Hey, hey, put it in the alley. Help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley.

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