Naval Gunfire Support - United States

United States

Naval Gunfire is still used for many of its traditional purposes. In the United States Marine Corps, artillery units have several Naval Gunfire Liaison Officers (NGLO, pronounced "no-glow") in each battalion to maintain close contact with the Navy for amphibious operations. The NGLO is responsible for the Shore Fire Control Party and works in the Fire Control Center with other liaison officers to coordinate naval gunfire with close air support, mortars and artillery. The NGLO joins the others in the planning of fire missions in support of the Marine Infantry Regiment.

Additionally, the United States Marine Corps maintains three active (1st, 2nd, & 5th) and two reserve (3rd & 4th) ANGLICO units. ANGLICO members are temporarily assigned to combat units of the United States and foreign nations that lack inherent fire support capability, such as naval gunfire. The navies of the world have almost universally moved away from the largest caliber guns of the early and middle of the 20th century because the battleships and large cruisers that carried them have been scrapped. The aircraft carrier and sea to land missile have proven to be more cost effective.

Naval guns used on modern ships tend to be smaller caliber weapons but with more advanced targeting systems. It is unlikely that the large caliber guns will make a return and much of the traditional role of Naval Gunfire has been taken over by naval air power.

Within the U.S. there is an ongoing debate over the role naval gunfire support should play in warfare. This has taken on a greater sense of urgency since the removal of the last two battleships from the NVR. In 2007, a thesis report submitted to the Joint Forces Staff College/Joint Advanced Warfighting School by Shawn A. Welch, a Colonel in the Army National Guard's Corps of Engineers analyzed the current capacity for naval gunfire support (NGS) and made several conclusions based on the progress made since the retirement of the last two Iowa-class battleships. Welch's thesis report, which earned the National Defense Universities award for Best Thesis in 2007, estimates that the full force of DD(X) destroyers needed to replace the decommissioned Iowas will not arrive until 2020-2025 at the earliest, and alleges that the U.S. Navy has not accurately assessed the capabilities of its large caliber gun ships since 1990. The report alleges that the Navy has consistently scaled back or outright cancelled programs intended to replace naval gunfire support capacity, in the process making no significant gains for offshore fire support since the retirement of the last Iowa-class battleship in 1992. This failure by the navy to meet Congressional mandates to improve naval gunfire support has caused a rift with the United States Marine Corps and to a lesser extent the United States Army; in the case of the former, the concern is great enough that several three and four star generals in the Marine Corps have openly admitted to the press their concern over the absence of any effective ship based gunfire support, and two separate Commandants of the Marine Corps have testified before the Senate Armed Service Committee on the risks faced by the Marines in the absence of any effective naval gunfire support.