War without the internet....

[FoxtrotOscar]

Gadgets.jpg
War without the internet? Commandant says Marines need to revive old-style comms

To get through a war with a near-peer competitor like China or Russia, Marines will need to master basics in communication and navigation, said the Marine Corps commandant.

Rival competitor nation states are challenging U.S. dominance across the globe, Gen. Robert Neller said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion in Washington Thursday.

The past seventeen years, America has been relatively unchallenged heading into the fight. Iraq and Afghanistan have afforded permissible environments for Marine aircraft and shore landings.

Service members in those conflicts heavily relied on satellite communications from everything to airstrikes, medical evacuations, to communication back home in the states. There was never a real threat to the network, and “people get used to that certainty,” Neller said.

But, headed into the future, “that’s not the way it’s going to be.”

Countries like China and Russia have been investing a lot of money into space development. Protection of space and America’s communications is a priority, but Marines will also need to learn how to adapt and operate without some of those tools.

It’s one of the reasons the commandant has included the novel “Ghost Fleet” on his reading list.

The book details a plunge into a not-too-implausible third world war with the futuristic battlefield in space and cyber.

The Corps is looking at and experimenting with other communication waveforms in case America’s satellite and GPS networks are destroyed or jammed in an attack. But it’s not enough, Neller said.

Marines will need to get really good at baseline communications with high frequency, or HF radios, capable of over-the-horizon communication.

Map and compass skills will also need to be strengthened across the Corps in the event GPS systems go down.

Munitions will also need to be multifunctioning, meaning a shell or missile can’t just be GPS guided, it needs to have other precision capabilities like lasers.

Marines also will need to start conducting training with the internet off, Neller said.

Similar Threads:

• Internet
• As Seen On The Internet!
• The internet
• The end of the internet

[Mongoose]

In my time, we used smoke signals and Pigeons.

[FoxtrotOscar]

When they lose power and have no knowledge of the fundamentaL SKILLS, they will be lost...

[m14ed]

POP-a-smoke Billymongoose,

and a can o' MRE's

[Mongoose]

Looks like one day that people will have to have 4 years of College and 2 years of Technical experience, before they can join the Military. Being a strong back, weak minded patriotic and crusader for freedom, will only get you a job at Wendy's.

[FistFu68]

All the while you’ve got Mere peasants putting Dicks in the dirt w/antiquated Chit !

[advanced]

Sounds like they may have to bring many of us back as instructors in how to fight a stone age war. Nothing like going hunting with all of your senses in full stimulation/feedback mode.

[oldtop]

Aahhh, the wonders of modern technology..... and the surprising increase in performance and results obtained when the troops tasked with providing "command and control communications", commonly referred to these days as "C3" are well schooled in BASIC COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS, and encouraged to IMPROVISE AS NEEDED..... the judicial use of old fashioned, basic communications skills and practices has surprised more than one "technology savvy" officer by producing results far superior to some of those "newfangled gadgets".... I will concede, however, that using satellite technology has saved the life of more than one Marine, the ability to have a medevac or air strike in the air within seconds is PRICELESS, and unobtanium without those satellites.

[Mongoose]

As Russ and Jack will verify....common sense and a will to live another day, was all we needed to communicate. We did our communicating with guts, firepower, and an overwhelming desire to kill gooks. When we walked away leaving a large area filled with dead gooks........we would say, we told tell them fvckers, we were coming 'em. You just can't talk to some azzholes.