Marines

WASHINGTON — Before being deployed to Los Angeles during anti-ICE protests last summer, U.S. Marines were given 12 rules for engaging with protesters, and Rule 1 was clear: Force “of any kind” was allowed only as a last resort.

If force were used, the rule stated, it “should be the minimum necessary to accomplish the mission.”

That detail is among 178 pages of federal documents released by the Marine Corps to the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act and shared exclusively with The Times.

The documents paint a thorough picture of how Marines prepared to deploy in Southern California, where they stood alongside National Guard members and agents with the Department of Homeland Security.

The documents also illuminate a glaring contrast between the training of Marines and that of immigration agents, who have been accused repeatedly of using unnecessary force against peaceful protesters, bystanders and immigrants during enforcement operations.

“Ironically, I would’ve felt much safer with Marine engagement than with DHS because of the depth of training,” said Ryan Schwank, a former instructor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits at the ICE Academy within the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.

Schwank is a whistleblower who resigned in February after revealing that the Trump administration had slashed immigration officer training. After reviewing the documents obtained by American Oversight, he said the training given to Marines on crowd control was “significantly more in-depth and longer than training given to an ICE officer, even under the best of circumstances.”

An ICE agent walks through tear gas that was fired to push protesters back during a raid on Atlantic Boulevard in the city of Bell on June 20, 2025.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions and instead pointed to a February news release that said training has not been cut back and that new hires receive additional training after leaving the academy.

“ICE law enforcement officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers,” said Lauren Bis, a department spokesperson. “Officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training.”

Schwank noted that the Marines and ICE officers came to Southern California with different objectives: As protectors of people and property, the Marines had a more limited, reactive mission, while ICE officers were charged with making arrests, a confrontational role.

“We’re giving [ICE officers] less training on it and fewer refreshers than the Marines are getting and yet we’re putting them in a situation where they’re taking the more confrontational actions to where they’re more likely to have to make split-second decisions,” Schwank said.

For most of history, he added, ICE agents detained people who were already in the custody of another law enforcement agency. He said ICE was never meant to act as riot police.

“The real fundamental problem isn’t ICE agents using force,” Schwank said. “It’s ICE agents using force in an environment they are not trained for.”

The training of Marines, and the lead-up to their deployment, is outlined in the documents reviewed by The Times.

On June 6, a commanding general emailed other generals to say that “national-level leadership” had directed Marines to assume an “alert posture” and be ready to support the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and ICE officers who were already responding to civil unrest in downtown Los Angeles.

The Marines would safeguard federal facilities and thus “protect lives and property through the restoration of civil order,” the email said.

The Trump administration directed 4,200 California National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines to Southern California starting June 7.

Marines push back anti-ICE protesters in front of the Federal Building during a “No Kings Day” in downtown Los Angeles last June.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

First, though, they needed to be trained.

The five-day course reviewed use-of-force policies, less-lethal weapons and handling of civil disturbances.

Overall, the 12 rules emphasized safety, urging Marines to be reasonable, to de-escalate tensions and to avoid confrontations with individuals who posed no threat.

Marines could use non-deadly force, if necessary, to control a situation or protect themselves or other federal personnel, and deadly force “only when all lesser means have failed.”

“Exercise due regard for the safety of innocent bystanders when using any type of force,” the rules state.

Schwank said there is no equivalent to the Marines course at Homeland Security. When he left the academy in February, he said, “there was no crowd control training, period.”

Crowd control was briefly added to the curriculum in 2021 for experienced law enforcement officers, he said, but it was later removed. ICE recruits may also have gotten lessons on crowd control after leaving the academy and joining their respective field offices, he said.

When Schwank left the agency, a six-hour class called “Public Order Public Safety” was in development for the 2026 curriculum, according to documents he provided to Congress. Homeland Security did not respond when asked if the class had started.

“I wouldn’t assume that any of the ICE officers on scene in L.A. had received any sort of actual crowd control class,” Schwank said. “They might have gotten a one-to-two-hour PowerPoint slideshow, but that would’ve been it.”

Marine Col. Beth R. Smith confirmed that the entire 2nd Battalion 7th Marines received academic and practical training before deploying to Los Angeles.

Managing civil disturbances has been an issue for Homeland Security since at least 2021, according to an audit conducted by the agency’s internal watchdog review of a 2020 deployment to Portland, Ore.

That year, President Trump mobilized federal power against the protests that spilled into Portland streets after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Trump sent 755 Homeland Security agents to defend federal property in what would come to be seen as a dry run for much larger operations of his second term.

A protester damages a Waymo vehicle at Los Angeles Street and Arcadia Street in L.A. on June 8, 2025.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Nested on rooftops, agents launched chemical weapons against protesters. Ground forces fired less-lethal rounds at point-blank range and forced participants into unmarked vans without explanation.

The audit by the Homeland Security inspector general found that only seven of 63 officers reviewed had received any level of riot and crowd control training. Some officers told investigators that they needed additional training, and many “questioned their involvement in the operation” due to the lack of preparation.

”Without the necessary policies, training, and equipment, DHS will continue to face challenges securing Federal facilities during periods of civil disturbance that could result in injury, death, and liability,” the audit concluded.

As of spring 2025, Homeland Security records show, the department had not corrected the training failures flagged in the audit years earlier.

Schwank agreed that the concerns raised in the inspector general’s report were never addressed.

Liz Hempowicz, deputy executive director of American Oversight, said the Marine Corps’ emphasis on de-escalation and on using force only as a last resort stands in stark contrast to what happened on the ground in Los Angeles with immigration agents.

The practices outlined in the documents “differ from positions taken by senior DHS leadership, whose separate internal communications revealed a mindset that appeared far more encouraging of violence,” she said.

Internal Homeland Security emails also obtained by American Oversight revealed that the agency’s lead attorney said federal agents in Los Angeles should have “just started hitting the rioters and arresting everyone that couldn’t get away.”

“These records underscore that the difference between disciplined restraint and unnecessary harm can come down to the tone set at the top — and when that tone shifts toward hostility, the human cost can be devastating,” Hempowicz said.

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a military research group, said that for Homeland Security, the issue is partly a training deficiency and partly a cultural shift against agent accountability.

“Trump talks about ‘the enemy within’ — this is what he’s talking about,” she said. “To some at DHS, the enemy within is all immigrants, it’s cartels — it’s also groups that are protesting the government.”

Conversely, the Marines’ documents emphasized personal liability and responsibility. For example, one page said that “if you either use more force than is necessary, or respond with DEADLY-force to a NON-deadly threat — You will likely lose your right to self-defense, and you will be viewed, under the law, as the ‘Aggressor.’”

Marines were told to immediately report anyone violating the 12 rules of engagement.

The high level of training for Marines shows that command considered the optics of military personnel harming or even killing civilians, Kavanagh said. But just because the deployment worked out last year doesn’t make it a good idea in the long run, she said.

Kavanagh, alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, opposed the military deployments to Los Angeles last year, maintaining that Marines are trained for foreign combat, not domestic crowd control.

“I see these deployments as a recipe for disaster,” she said.

Schwank said ICE’s training touches on personal liability but not in as much depth. Last fall, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, said ICE officers “have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.”

On the ground in Los Angeles, ICE agents and other local law enforcement fired a range of less-lethal weapons at protesters, such as pepper balls, hard foam rounds or canisters delivering flash-bang grenades and tear gas.

At a June 12 protest, a federal agent shoved freelance journalist Anna Sophia Moltke to the ground, causing sprains on her left arm and leg and deep scrapes to her hip and knee that have since scarred. She was carrying a camera, she said, and wore clear press credentials and a helmet that said “PRESS.”

“I remember distinctly there being no violence at all until police and ICE showed up,” she said. “We saw them firing rubber bullets into the crowd. People started running away. I was halfway turned around when they started rushing the crowd, and a tall, 6-foot-4 masked man used both hands to push me onto the concrete.”

Moltke said she recalled a large group of protesters gathered near the Marines stationed at the northern end of the detention center, just before police and ICE swept through and forced her to the ground. To her knowledge, she said the Marines remained at their post and didn’t participate in street skirmishes.

The U.S. Marine Corps is exploring the possibility of fielding a theater ballistic missile defense capability. A key driver in this discussion is the U.S. Army’s capacity to provide protection against ballistic threats in future conflicts, or lack thereof, something TWZ has highlighted repeatedly in the past. The latest conflict with Iran has underscored the serious threats that ballistic missiles pose even to high-end integrated air and missile defense networks, which would be magnified further in a fight against a near-peer adversary like China.

“We’re exploring theater ballistic missile defense. So we’re doing some studies, we’re running some simulations, to see if that’s a requirement for the service in the future,” Marine Lt. Col. Robert Barclay said during a panel discussion yesterday at the annual Modern Day Marine exposition, at which TWZ has been in attendance.

Barclay is currently the Marine Air Command and Control Systems (MACCS) Integration Branch Head within the Aviation Combat Element Division of the service’s Combat Development and Integration office. His portfolio includes service-wide air and missile defense requirements.

“We know our old sensor used to be able to do it, but it wasn’t really a requirement,” Barclay added. “What we need to determine is, is [defending against] a theater ballistic [missile] like an SRBM [short-range ballistic missile] or MRBM [medium-range ballistic missile], a requirement for the Marine Corps to do? I would argue that it probably is.”

“At the end of the day, I don’t think the Army’s going to have enough capacity with us where we’re operating to actually adjudicate on that threat,” he continued. “So, I think we need to take a hard look at that, and that’s what our intent [is] to do over the next year.”

To take a step back quickly, the Marine Corps’ main general-purpose ground-based anti-air weapon today is the Stinger short-range heat-seeking surface-to-air missile. The service currently fields Stinger in a man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) configuration using shoulder-fired launchers, as well as integrated on the Humvee-based Avenger air defense vehicles. Stinger offers a point defense capability against fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, drones, and certain types of cruise missiles.

The Marines also hope to reach initial operational capability this year with a new Medium-Range Intercept Capability (MRIC), which is a service-specific variation of the Israeli Iron Dome system. MRIC uses a U.S.-made version of Iron Dome’s Tamir interceptor, called SkyHunter, and a trailer-based road-mobile launcher. Each launcher can accommodate up to 20 interceptors, which come preloaded in individual canisters, at a time. The system uses offboard sensors to spot and track targets and cue missiles to intercept them. The Corps’ existing AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radars (G/ATOR) have been presented as the primary sensor for MRIC.

“The primary target set for MRIC is cruise missiles and your higher-end Group 5-type of [anti-]air application, as well as rotary wing, fixed-wing type of aspects,” Marine Col. Andrew Konicki, the service’s Program Manager for Ground Based Air Defense and another panelist at Modern Day Marine yesterday, explained. MRIC “can go after Group 3, because it’s probably a mismatch in terms of ammunition versus what it’s going after. So it’s primarily focused on that growing threat, or that higher-end threat, so to speak, as part of that integrated air missile defense application and layer defense piece.”

Groups 3 and 5 here refer to different categories of uncrewed aerial systems. The U.S. military defines Group 5 as consisting of drones with maximum weights greater than 1,320 pounds, and that can fly above 18,000 feet. The MQ-9 Reaper is a commonly used example of a Group 5 uncrewed aircraft. Drones that fall under Group 3 have maximum weights anywhere between 56 and 1,320 pounds, can operate at altitudes between 3,500 and 18,000 feet, and reach top speeds of up to 250 knots. Group 3 is very broad, but notably includes Iran’s now-infamous Shahed 136 long-range kamikaze drone, and the growing number of variants and derivatives thereof.

Lt. Col. Robert Barclay’s mention of an unspecified previous Marine ballistic missile defense capability seems most likely to be a reference to the HAWK medium-range surface-to-air missile system. The service retired HAWK in the 1990s, but versions of the system remain in use elsewhere worldwide, including in Ukraine. HAWK has used an evolving mixture of radars for target acquisition and engagement since the system was first introduced in the 1950s, as you can read more about here. Improved HAWK interceptors have also been developed, including variants explicitly intended to offer a rudimentary anti-ballistic missile capability.

The video below shows HAWK systems in service in Ukraine.

Американський ЗРК HAWK (Яструб) захищає небо України!

Barclay did not elaborate on what level of ballistic missile defense capability the Marine Corps might look to pursue in the future. In the past year or so, there have been reports of Israel using Iron Dome against incoming Iranian ballistic missiles in the terminal phase. However, the system’s effectiveness against ballistic missiles of any kind, which it was never designed to intercept, and whether the Marines might be able to employ MRIC in this role, is unclear.

Today, the main tool for providing ground-based theater ballistic missile defense across all of America’s armed forces is the Army’s Patriot surface-to-air missile systems. The Army also operates the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which offers a higher-end ballistic missile defense capability over Patriot. Both Patriot and THAAD are only capable of intercepting incoming ballistic threats during their final terminal phase.

The PATRIOT Missile in Action

At the same time, as TWZ has highlighted several times in recent years, the Army’s Patriot force is heavily strained due to constant demands that it is simply not adequately resourced to meet. The THAAD force is even smaller and is in equally heavy demand.

The latest conflict with Iran has reignited discussions about the Army’s worryingly limited capacity to meet operational needs for ballistic missile defense, as well as protection against other aerial threats. Between February and April, Iranian forces launched repeated missile and drone attacks on key bases across the Middle East. They were successful in many instances in targeting high-value military assets, including aircraft parked on the ground and air and missile defense radars.

The United States Marine Corps on Tuesday gave us our first glimpse of its evolving plan for its ground forces to succeed in the battlefield of the future. Dubbed Ground Combat Element 2040 (GCE 2040), it calls for ensuring that Marines are not just equipped with the latest technology, but that they know how to use it, all while maintaining readiness as they integrate these new systems into their formations. While all the final details remain in flux, we are getting a general idea of some of the elements the plan will include.

A working concept of the plan was presented for the first time today during a panel at the Modern Day Marine Expo held in Washington, D.C. It builds on the vision of former Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger’s Marine Force Design 2030 initiative, according to one of the current Corps leaders working to implement GCE 2040.

“This is really an opportunity for us to describe the future of the ground combat element in the United States Marine Corps,” explained Maj. Gen. Jason Morris, the Corps’ Director of Operations, Compliance, Policies and Operations. We want to “make sure that we have a clear vision of the capabilities required to field the most lethal, survivable ground combat element in the world, and make sure that we’ve got a pathway over the next three fiscal year defense programs that we are keeping our eye on the horizon, staying adaptable and incorporating new technologies into our Marine divisions and those subordinate elements that are a part of it.”

In addition, the Marines are “also continuing to refine the force design vision, to make sure that we are ready to go for any crisis, contingency or conflict in the future,” Morris added.

To better explain the GCE 2040 concept, Morris played a video laying out some of what it entails.  The video, which has not been yet been shared online, and a document that will be published in coming weeks, focuses on how the Marine Corps approaches human-centric warfare of the future.

“GCE 2040 is about equipping the Marine, not the machine,” the video stated. “While looking ahead to integrate robotic and autonomous systems into our formations and operationalizing AI at the tactical edge through concepts like Project Dynamis [an integrated battle management system being developed by the Marines], the Marine Corps will enable combat formations to sense, make sense and act with greater speed and precision than any adversary.”

Under GCE 2040, Marines will “integrate advanced sensors and intelligence networks to find and fix the enemy across all domains” while “conducting expeditionary maneuver in contested spaces and sustaining a resilient force through all phases of the operation,” the video stated. In addition, Marines will employ “joint forceful fires and achieve the effects of mass while mitigating vulnerabilities striking adversary targets from land, air and sea,” and establish “persistent, survivable [command and control] networks that enable decision making at machine speed from the strategic level down to the squad.”

The objective “is to generate the tempo of decision and action that allows us to shape, seize and hold key maritime terrain, deter aggression and prevail decisively in any future conflict,” the video explained.

This broadly fits with the U.S. military’s push to create ever larger and faster kill webs, in order to break the enemy’s decision cycle.  

When we asked for more details, the Marines told us that the plan includes addressing the need for ground-based air defense down to the squad level. 

“The proliferation of inexpensive one-way attack drones is the most significant tactical threat we face,” the Marines told us. “While systems like the Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) and Medium-Range Intercept Capability [MRIC] are critical for a layered defense at echelon we must continue to thicken the protective layer that cover Marines at all echelons.”

You can read more about the Marines’ emerging doctrine for devolving air defense down to the individual Marine in our story here.

In a broader context, including air defense and offensive capabilities, the Marines told us “We must increase investment in multi-domain lethality and targeting systems that enable the right weapon to engage the right target at the right time to maximize the efficient use of lethal means against the enemy… The modern battlefield demands that we develop and field dispersed, AI-enabled targeting systems to create a network of sensors across the entire GCE.” 

The plan also involves evolving how Marines view technology. Autonomous systems and AI are a central focus of the new plan. The Marines state that these are not just tools, but are members of the team and the Marines are being trained to consciously accept risk with hardware rather than troops. 

Both AI and large quantities of autonomous systems will be critical to enabling future kill webs as discussed above. The USMC also says interoperability, both with other U.S. military branches and allies will be more critical than ever to achieving its aims going forward.

“The fact is that the Marine Corps is focused on the human being, individual, sailor, how we recruit and develop them, and how we build them into lethal combat teams,” proffered Maj Gen. Farrell J Sullivan, Commanding General of the Second Marine Division. “That has always been the case, and that will always be the case in the Marine Corps going forward, but modernization matters, and although we’re doing well, we have a long way to go, and as long as I’m in command of Second Marine Division, I will not be satisfied with where we are”

The GCE 2040 concept, he added, draws on lessons learned from modern combat that has evolved over the past decade into one where unmanned systems – like large drones such as Shahed-136s and smaller, first-person view (FPV) types – have become a major threat in Ukraine, the Middle East and many other places around the world.

The following image shows a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS destroyed in a combined Iranian missile and drone barrage during the now-paused war.

The following video shows an Iranian-backed militia using FPV drones to strike a Black Hawk helicopter and a critical air defense radar at an American base in Iraq.

The new plan envisions future combat particularly in the Pacific, where Marines would likely have to fight inside the Chinese weapons engagement zone and across wide swaths of ocean. In such a battle, they would face standoff weapons and non-kinetic effects like advanced electronic warfare far more damaging and disrupting than what U.S. forces have faced in the fight against Iran. A Pacific conflict would also strain logistics as like never before.

“When you envision the type of fight we’re preparing for, where we face a peer or near peer adversary in a high-end fight, where all domains are contested, and in some the adversary will have an advantage, that’s not the battlefield we have fought on, at least not since I’ve been in the Marine Corps,” Sullivan stated. “And we see, if you look back over the last 10 or so years, how that manifests itself in places like Ukraine. Again, I don’t want to have a bias towards that conflict and say that all the future will look exactly like that, because it won’t, but we would be criminal not to be paying attention to that.”

Clearly the USMC is painting in very broad strokes at this time as there is still a lot more work to do to hammer out the details of GCE 2040.  The Marines say they will provide more details in the next few weeks and we continue to cover this issue as they become available.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Bell has put forward a new concept for a next-generation tiltrotor aircraft armed with anti-ship cruise missiles and other munitions for the U.S. Marine Corps. The design is based on what has been newly named the MV-75A Cheyenne II, which is in development for the U.S. Army. This comes as the Corps has said “everything is on the table” as it starts to formulate a new vision for what will succeed its AH-1Z Viper and UH-1Y Venom helicopters.

A model of the new armed MV-75 concept for the Marines is currently on display at the annual Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, D.C., at which TWZ is in attendance. It is painted in the markings of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 267 (HMLA-267), a unit currently equipped with AH-1Z and UH-1Y helicopters, which perform attack and armed utility mission sets, respectively.

The model’s most immediately eye-catching details are its armament. This includes two stub wings, each with a single pylon, mounted on either side of the top of the forward fuselage, situated between the main wing and the cockpit. A Naval Strike Missile (NSM), a stealthy anti-ship cruise missile with secondary land capability, is loaded on the left side. The Marine Corps is already fielding NSM in a ground-launched configuration. The missile is also in U.S. Navy service as a sea-launched weapon, as it was originally designed.

On the right side of the model, there is a pair of missiles, which are intended to reflect the Marine Corps’ forthcoming Precision Attack Strike Munition (PASM) capability. PASM is a version of L3Harris’ Red Wolf, a small, lower-cost cruise missile that you can read more about here.

It is interesting to note that the missiles on the model also look similar in broad strokes to Lockheed Martin’s Common Multi-Mission Trucks (CMMT, pronounced ‘comet’). Red Wolf and CMMT are just a few examples of a growing field of missile-shaped ‘air vehicles,’ many of which can be readily reconfigurable to perform a host of different tasks, including acting as a kinetic munition, an expendable electronic warfare system, or a decoy. Designs in this general category increasingly blur the line between uncrewed aerial systems, especially longer-range kamikaze drones, and traditional cruise missiles.

The stub wings could be used to carry other stores, such as AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) laser-guided rockets, per Bell.

Two additional launchers are attached to the sides of each of the main landing gear sponsons. These are intended to depict launch tubes for the ALTIUS-700M loitering munition or something similar, according to Bell. This is a general category of uncrewed systems now commonly referred to as launched effects. There are also five apertures on either side of the fuselage through which additional munitions or drones could be fired via Common Launch Tube (CLT).

“There are some restrictions of [sic] where you can place them [launchers and/or pylons for munitions and other stores], because anything that’s forward firing would need to have the clearance to get past the [rotor] tip path plane and [have] it fit inside the fuselage,” Bill Hendricks, Senior Strategy Manager at Bell, told our Eric Tegler on the show floor at Modern Day Marine. “Our assumption is that, should the Marine Corps pursue something like this, they would want to be able to employ ordnance while in airplane mode with the nacelles forward. So the weapons that we have currently on that conceptual model would be something that you could fire in airplane mode.”

The design also has a three-barrel Gatling-type cannon or machine gun in a turret under the nose. What is depicted is in line with the M197 20mm Gatling-type cannon found on Marine AH-1Zs today. An improved, lightweight evolution of that cannon, the XM915, was also expected to arm the Army’s now-canceled Future Armed Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA).

The video below shows a live-fire flight test of the XM915 mounted on a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.

XM915 20mm firing

The model of MV-75 derivative for the Marines also has a sensor turret in the nose with a pair of large apertures in front, which typically reflect electro-optical and/or infrared video cameras inside. It has a retractable in-flight refueling probe, as well. The Army’s plans for in-flight refueling capability for the Cheyenne II are evolving. This is also a feature expected to be found on a special operations version of the MV-75.

Compared to the AH-1Z and UH-1Y, with this tiltrotor design, “now you have additional range, you have additional speed, more operational flexibility, you can cover more area with one platform,” Bell’s Hendricks highlighted at the Modern Day Marine show.

“If that was something that we were asked to look at, then we can certainly explore that,” he added when asked about the possibility of extra fuel carried externally for even greater reach. “That’s not something that we’ve looked at with that conceptual design, because an MV-75 variant in that configuration with internal fuel would still have a range, after a short takeoff or a running takeoff, in excess of 1,000 nautical miles.”

As a single replacement for the AH-1Z and UH-1Y, an armed MV-75 derivative would come in a larger and more expensive package, which would present additional tradeoffs for the Marines to consider. As an aside, the service is also now in the process of charting a separate course to a replacement for the MV-22 Osprey.

As noted, the Marine Corps has now begun to lay out a new vision for what will succeed its AH-1Z and UH-1Y helicopters. The service has previously told TWZ that this effort, currently known as Future Attack Strike (FASt), will also help fill certain capability gaps created by the retirement of the AV-8B Harrier jump jet and legacy F/A-18C/D Hornet fighters. The Marines have long said the main replacements for the AV-8Bs and F/A-18C/Ds will be variants of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

“So, right now, for FASt, everything is on the table. Manned, unmanned, optionally-piloted, I think, are good avenues to take a look at. Conventional rotary-wing, tiltrotor. Maybe there’s something else out there,” Col. Scott Shadforth said in response to a question, also from Eric Tegler, while speaking today at Modern Day Marine. “There is no steadfast, solid response to that.”

Shadforth is currently Director of the Expeditionary Maritime Aviation-Advanced Development Team (XMA-ADT) within Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). XMA-ADT focused on rapid prototyping and experimentation to help refine future Marine Corps aviation requirements in cooperation with the Navy.

“So, as we look at unmanned, manned-unmanned teaming, air-launched effects, all the capabilities to help extend the range of various assault support or attack type platforms, all of those are on the table for consideration by the Marine Corps at this time,” he added.

In the meantime, the Marines are notably working to integrate a standoff strike capability onto the AH-1Z through the aforementioned PASM, which will open up significant new operational possibilities. The service has also been looking at ways to expand the roles and missions of the UH-1Y, to include anti-submarine warfare capability and acting as an airborne drone controller.

It is important to note that this is not the first time Bell has shown models and renderings of armed variations of this design, originally branded as the V-280 Valor, that could perform sea control and other maritime mission sets. This has included versions with internal bays, as well as pylons under the wings and ones mounted on the sides of the rear end of the fuselage.

Previous navalized concepts have also included folding main wings and rotors, similar in form and function to those features on the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, to help reduce the aircraft’s physical footprint when operating from ships. Bell has said previously that the ‘stowed’ configuration of the V-280 could be small enough to fit inside the hangars on Arleigh Burke class destroyers, as well as those on larger naval vessels.

Bell has also pitched navalized V-280/MV-75 designs in the past, paired together with its uncrewed V-247 Vigilant tiltrotor drone. This has included previous proposals specifically aimed at meeting future Marine Corps aviation requirements, which have evolved significantly in recent years.

“I can see conceptually, where the Navy could, if this is what they wanted, adopt like this to [meet] their sea control, or ASW [anti-submarine warfare], or ASuW [anti-surface warfare] mission set [sic], because of the additional range that it gives you,” Bell’s Hendricks said when asked about whether this concept could also be relevant to that service’s needs. “It would outperform the speed and range of an H-60, and so that would give them more operational reach.”

In recent years, the Navy has been exploring options for replacements for its MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawk helicopters, as well as its MQ-8C Fire Scout drone helicopters. However, at least in the near term, the service seems to be leaning more toward a major evolution of the Seahawk platform rather than an entirely new platform.

The Marine Corps has made clear that all options are currently on the table, including a tiltrotor like Bell’s MV-75 or a derivative thereof, as the service works to firm up requirements for a replacement for its AH-1Z and UH-1Y helicopters.

Eric Tegler and Phil Hladky contributed to this story.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

New video from the US military is said to show an operation by its forces to seize an Iranian-flagged ship which attempted to bypass the US blockade of Iranian ports. The US says the cargo ship Touska was linked to a sanctioned company, while Iran condemned the move as ‘piracy’ and a violation of the ceasefire.