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Understanding salvo equations for the Stand-in Force
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The CMC has issued clear guidance in his force planning directives and followon documents like A Conceptfor Stand-in Forces that the Marine Corps must change its role in naval operations. This guidance has generated a large amount of spirited discussion about how to structure the new Marine Corps and what its new doctrine and tactics should be. The 2021 Tentative Manualfor Expeditionary Base Operations describes new force structures such as the Marine Littoral Regiment and its role in Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). One novel feature of the proposed Marine Littoral Regiment and future MEU force structures is the inclusion of a NavyMarine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) battery.1 The NMESIS battery is a tailor-made unit designed for engaging enemy ships with naval strike missiles from ashore. The NMESIS battery's inclusion into MaThe rine Corps force structures marks our Services entry into the arena of naval missile combat.
Although most Marines understand the NMESIS capability's tactical and operational benefits, there is only limited knowledge within our Service about missile combat in a naval context. What features of this capability are important? How do we define success and how should we measure our effectiveness and performance in this new mission? This article strives to demystify how missile combat is quantitatively modeled and what important insights may be obtained for the Marine Corps regarding naval missile combat. This material requires some mathematical equations for a full explanation, but none of the following examples include any computations requiring math skills greater than basic algebra. The intent is that after reading this article, Marine readers better understand their Service's role in anti-surface ship warfare, with the benefit of some insights about what is important in naval missile combat. At no point should any of the mathematical models discussed in the following paragraphs be considered predictive in the real world. Real combat in all forms is far too chaotic to be explained perfectly by a handful of expected value equations. Instead, these models are useful for understanding the attributes of missile combat and discerning what elements of the friendly and enemy system deserve additional scrutiny and improvement.
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