Allocating Marine Expeditionary Unit Equipment and Personnel to Minimize Shortfalls
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Allocating Marine Expeditionary Unit Equipment and Personnel to Minimize Shortfalls Walter L. Perry, Roald Euller, Jennifer Kavanagh, Nicholas Salcedo Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense Approved for public release; distribution unlimited NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE The research described in this report was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The research was conducted within the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by OSD, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community under Contract W74V8H-06-C-0002. Library of Congress Control Number: 2012942069 ISBN: 978-0-8330-7619-9 The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark. © Copyright 2012 RAND Corporation Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND documents to a non-RAND website is prohibited. RAND documents are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND permissions page (http://www.rand.org/publications/ permissions.html). Published 2012 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2665 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: [email protected] Preface For various reasons, including the commander’s priorities and expected mission requirements, U.S. Marine Corps amphibious lift requirements—that is, the space needed on ships to trans- port equipment for a given mission—may exceed the U.S. Navy’s lift capacity. Thus, Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) afloat generally do not have all their support personnel and equipment on board. What is the impact of this shortfall on a MEU’s ability to complete the tasks associated with its mission, especially when the mission includes reconstruction and sta- bilization operations? Close examination reveals that, in general, MEUs do not fail as a result of these equipment shortfalls; Marine Corps commanders are able to make use of the equip- ment they have in innovative and creative ways to accomplish the tasks at hand. However, equipment shortfalls do force shortcuts and sometimes sacrifice the quality and speed of task completion. This report describes the development of an automated tool for allocating both equipment and personnel to complete the tasks associated with 15 MEU missions, highlight- ing the associated equipment implications. The RAND-developed Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Equipment Structural Assessment (MESA) application software CD is included with printed copies of this report. The application also accompanies the online version of this report as a separate downloadable file at http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR1253.html. This research was sponsored by the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Command and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. For more information on RAND’s International Security and Defense Policy Center, see http://www.rand.org/nsrd/ndri/centers/isdp.html or contact the director (contact information is provided on the web page). iii Contents Preface ........................................................................................................... iii Figures ........................................................................................................... ix Tables ............................................................................................................ xi Summary .......................................................................................................xiii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................... xxiii Abbreviations ................................................................................................. xxv CHaptER ONE Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 Research Objective ............................................................................................... 2 Approach .......................................................................................................... 3 Challenges ........................................................................................................ 3 Limitations ........................................................................................................ 4 About This Report ............................................................................................... 5 CHaptER TWO Mission Deconstruction ....................................................................................... 7 MEU Organization .............................................................................................. 9 The Marine Air-Ground Task Force ......................................................................... 9 Common Tasks ..................................................................................................11 Mission Planning .............................................................................................11 Establishing the Command Center .........................................................................12 Amphibious Assault and Raid ...............................................................................13 Road and Area Clearance ....................................................................................14 Assaults, Raids, and Infiltrations ............................................................................14 Conducting Reconnaissance .................................................................................15 Civil Control ..................................................................................................15 Evacuation of Personnel ......................................................................................15 Force Protection Operations .................................................................................16 Transition to Host-Nation Control .........................................................................16 Withdrawal ....................................................................................................16 Deconstructing Humanitarian Assistance ...................................................................17 Humanitarian Assistance ....................................................................................17 Mission Planning and Establishing Command Centers .................................................18 Road and Area Clearance ....................................................................................18 v vi Allocating Marine Expeditionary Unit Equipment and Personnel to Minimize Shortfalls Establishing