Early last year during an at-sea training event, elements of 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, and SEAL Team 2 united with the USS Arlington (LPD-24) and Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81) to form an “Amphibious Black” maritime force to demonstrate two future concepts for the Navy and Marine Corps: distributed maritime operations and expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO). Amphibious Black is a form of maritime guerrilla warfare in which, after decades of fighting insurgencies across the globe, we become the guerrillas.

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1. Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Marines, Navy Wrestle with How to Upgun Amphibs,” Breakingdefense.com, 18 January 2019.

2. Mallory Shelbourne, “First Image of Marines’ New Anti-Ship Missile Unmanned Truck Emerges,” USNI News, 28 April 2021; and Joseph Trevithick, “Marines Set to Be the First to Bring Back Land-Based Tomahawk Missiles Post-INF Treaty,” The War Zone, 5 March 2020.

3. MAJ Earl H. Ellis, USMC, Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia in 1921 (Washington, DC: Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, 23 July 1921).

4. CAPT Robert C. Rubel, USN (Ret.), “Mission Command in a Future Naval Combat Environment,” Naval War College Review 71, no. 2 (Spring 2018).

5. Remarks by General Mark Milley on the establishment of NATO Joint Force Command Norfolk on board the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), 15 July 2021.

Captain Hill is the former commanding officer of the USS Arlington (LPD-24) and Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 124 (VAW-124).

Commander Shanley is a 2012 recipient of the Stephen Decatur Award for Operational Competence, and in 2021, while he was the commanding officer of the USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81), the warship received the USS Arizona Memorial Trophy for Combat Readiness.

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