Osprey’s “Distributed Ops” Amplifies Marine Corps

"The Marine Corps ain’t big: just around 200,000 people, counting activated reservists. But they’re very good at everything they do, from “forced entry” (a.k.a., “invasion”) to counter-insurgency. So how do we do more with the Marine Corps we’ve got? By spreading them out to cover more ground, that’s how.

The Marines call this “distributed operations,” and it’s all the rage. On the sea, that means breaking up the traditional heavy assault force into smaller raiding parties riding in LPD-17 assault ships and Littoral Combat Ships. In the air, that means relying on aircraft to cover the distance between widely scattered ground units. Helicopters can do it, but they’re slow. V-22 Osprey tiltrotors, by contrast, are fast."
War is Boring