FRIDAY FOTO (July 31, 2020)

Tanks for the Memory.

 (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Patrick King)

With their turrets reversed, it’s hard to tell if this line of Marine Corps Abrams main battle tanks are coming or going. But make no mistake, these behemoths are definitely going — away, forever.

The official caption of this photo reads:

U.S. Marines with 2d Tank Battalion, 2d Marine Division, track through tank trails on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, July 27, 2020. For nearly 80 years, 2d Tank Battalion left the tank lot and would return after combat or training operations. This time, the tanks will not return. After serving 2d MARDIV for more than three quarters of a century, 2nd Tank Battalion will deactivate in accordance with the future redesign of the Marine Corps.

It isn’t just the 2nd MARDIV’s tanks that are going away. The Marine Corps is unloading all of its M1A1 Abrams tanks, M-88 Recovery Vehicles and Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges as part of the United States Marine Corps Force Design 2030 guidance published in March by General David  Berger, the Marine Corps commandant.

The 15-page document outlines a plan to modernize the Marine Corps in accordance with the National Defense Strategy, which pivots away from two decades of counter insurgency and special operations combat with terrorist groups around the world to Great Power competition with Russia and China. The Force re-design calls for a shift from big guns, tanks and infantry units to  rocket artillery batteries, light armored reconnaissance companies and unmanned aerial vehicle squadrons.

The Marine Corps will eventually divest of all three of its active tank battalions as it moves from a “second land army” back to its maritime roots of defending ships at sea, island-hopping and battling for contested coastlines, in preparation for potential conflict with near-peer adversaries such as China, according to Stars and Stripes in a July 30 article under the headline: A  farewell to armor.