Marines with Fox Battery, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, launch rockets from a HIMARS, 2019. Presumably that will also mean the Marines will buy fewer F-35s. Even F-35 units will take a hit-though the Marines won’t deactivate any squadrons, each will have only 10 F-35s instead of the planned 16. The service will also eliminate three infantry battalions, each with about 800 personnel, 16 out of 21 artillery cannon batteries, two out of six amphibious companies, and four tiltrotor and helicopter squadrons. Bridging units capable of setting up mobile bridges are also going away, as none of the islands have any rivers or streams. The cuts will remove approximately 200 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks from the Marines' inventory. The Marine Corps has fielded tanks for 97 continuous years, receiving six M1917 six-ton tanks from the U.S. The Marines are eliminating all four tank battalions, including three active duty and one reserve battalion equivalent. U.S Marines with Bridge Company, 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group off load a section of an Improvised Ribbon Bridge at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, 2019. Heavy cannon artillery in the 155-millimeter range would also be unnecessary, as the islands are too tiny to utilize their range. The Marines apparently think that 65-ton M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks won’t be needed in amphibious assaults launched to take them, especially since China is unlikely to base their own tanks on these islands. The small size of the islands limits the size of the force needed to defend them, as well as the size of the force required to take them.
Subi Reef, the site of another air base, is only 976 acres. None of these “islands” are very large: Fiery Cross Reef, the site of a Chinese military air base, is only 677 acres. If war unfortunately breaks out, the Marine Corps will almost certainly ride into the South China Sea on Navy transport ships and seize many of these islands with military bases, in order to deprive China of their ports and airfields and the ability to flex military power. What am amphibious assault looks like: amphibious assault vehicles with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit debark from the USS Comstock to conduct an amphibious assault rehearsal, 2016.
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