The US Marines are copying the drug cartels for their missile war with China on the island chains

By David Axe

In the early 2000s, Latin American drug cartels developed a new tactic to smuggle large quantities of illegal drugs into the United States. They built special boats that were semi-submersible – that is, almost the entire boat was underwater with only minimal structure protruding from the waves – with the goal of evading detection by U.S. security forces. Some smuggling boats were built to be fully submerged, but this never became common practice.

These semi-submersible “narco-subs” or “narco-boats” don't always work: The US Navy and US Coast Guard regularly intercept them, and the Royal Navy caught one earlier this month. But the underlying idea – stealth through inconspicuousness – is a good one. So good that the US Marine Corps is trying to copy them for one of its most important missions: supplying far-flung island outposts during a potential war with China.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory recently began testing two 55-foot robotic semisubmersibles off the coast of California.

“To be honest, it's just a drug boat,” said Brigadier General Simon Doran. “We stole the idea from friends in the south.”

The so-called Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel has a range of thousands of miles. The Marines could launch an ALPV from Hawaii and sail it to the first chain of islands stretching between Japan and the Philippines, which is expected to be the front line of any major fighting between the United States and China, possibly over Taiwan. The Marine Corps is transforming from a relatively conventional land combat force to a missile-equipped, mobile maritime organization designed to use Pacific islands as firebases against Chinese forces.

One of the biggest challenges in deploying the ALPV is safety. Operators based on the other side of the world must chart a course for the vessel that avoids the busiest shipping lanes – and potential collisions with civilian vessels. It's imperative that the vessel “doesn't interfere with commerce and other things out there,” Doran said.

The semi-submersible craft is designed to be easy to operate. For the first tests in February, the Marines spent three weeks training a cook to pilot the craft via satellite. Doran compared the ALPV's operating system to a smartphone app.

The first experiments were encouraging and enthusiasm is growing. “The Marines wanted it yesterday,” Doran said of the semi-submersible. And for good reason. Many of the other boats that the Marines rely on for their island supply missions are unreliable – or have development problems.

The Marines fly hundreds of MV-22 Osprey long-range tiltrotors, ideal for supply flights to islands when they are deployed. But the controversial helicopters were grounded for months after a fatal crash in November. It was far from the first safety crisis involving the V-22 – and it probably won't be the last.

The Marines are also working with the Navy to develop a new class of small, stealthy landing ships that could theoretically travel between islands in the western Pacific without attracting the attention of Chinese forces because they would resemble a merchant ship upon closer inspection. But construction of the first of potentially dozens of ships has been delayed by two years, to 2025 at the earliest, due to worrying cost increases.

On the edge, the Pentagon has been working on some concepts for seaplanes and floats – aircraft types that the U.S. military hasn't used for decades. But none of these initiatives are making much progress.

While the ALPV's primary role is to transport supplies to remote island outposts where the Marine Corps plans to establish missile bases as part of its new island-hopping strategy, it is also possible to arm the low-lying vessel. USMC testers have concluded that it is possible to equip the ALPV with a pair of 800-pound naval strike missiles capable of hitting ships and targets on land from up to 100 miles away.

At least one of the ALPVs is en route to Okinawa, Japan — the main base of the III Marine Expeditionary Force — for further testing under increasingly realistic conditions. If all goes well, the Marines could begin purchasing drug boats in large numbers in the next few years.

If the Marines are smart, they will do what the cartels do – and keep the ships as simple as possible so they can be manufactured quickly, at scale, and at reasonable cost. The cartels need this capacity because they can count on police patrols intercepting a certain percentage of their semisubmersibles for drug smuggling. The Marines can equally count on Chinese patrols intercepting some of their semisubmersibles.

Overall, however, the ALPV is a good idea. If implemented correctly, it could help make the Marines' island-hopping plans for the war against China much more successful…. PACNEWS