- Joined
- Mar 3, 2021
Marine leaders aim to put a Navy field corpsman at the squad level as part of ongoing reconfiguration and experiments with the service’s infantry battalions.
Historically in the Marine Corps, Navy corpsmen resided at the platoon level, and more senior corpsmen and medical assets stayed at the battalion level with headquarters and service companies and at higher-level units such as the regiment or in an attached, support capacity.
In war-gaming and exercises during Phase I experimentation it was difficult to get the medical personnel and technology needed to the tactical edge where Marines needed them most.
The increased medical move also has roots in long-standing concerns about how great power competition combat with peer rivals could deny access to medical care and casualty evacuation that most of the military grew accustomed to in the past decades of fighting counterinsurgency and counterterrorism wars.
Various research initiatives are seeking ways to pipe in video and audio communication from stateside military doctors to advise medics with advanced training, such as in U.S. Special Operations Command, so that a skilled medic or corpsman could even conduct more complex field expedient surgeries if the patient couldn’t be evacuated from an austere location.
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www.defensenews.com
Historically in the Marine Corps, Navy corpsmen resided at the platoon level, and more senior corpsmen and medical assets stayed at the battalion level with headquarters and service companies and at higher-level units such as the regiment or in an attached, support capacity.
In war-gaming and exercises during Phase I experimentation it was difficult to get the medical personnel and technology needed to the tactical edge where Marines needed them most.
The increased medical move also has roots in long-standing concerns about how great power competition combat with peer rivals could deny access to medical care and casualty evacuation that most of the military grew accustomed to in the past decades of fighting counterinsurgency and counterterrorism wars.
Various research initiatives are seeking ways to pipe in video and audio communication from stateside military doctors to advise medics with advanced training, such as in U.S. Special Operations Command, so that a skilled medic or corpsman could even conduct more complex field expedient surgeries if the patient couldn’t be evacuated from an austere location.
A squad corpsman: How Marine planners are seeking better combat care
The next phase of experimentation will focus on what battalions need.
www.defensenews.com