EFSS is what we got. But is it what we needed? The EFSS was birthed out of the Dragon Fire Concept. It envisioned a heavy mortar that was capable of rapid fire. Of being left in place and firing without a crew. Of basically providing instant, on call fire support. Somewhere along the way, the designer of the system and the Marine Corps got into a pissing match and the concept was allowed to die and surrogate systems became primary. So instead of a cutting edge mortar, the Marine Corps was left with a tired, old, French mortar system that requires Marines to jump up on boxes to load it.
Read about the Dragon Fire Concept here. But the question should be asked. How did the Marine Corps go from a cutting edge weapon system to what it has today? According to my limited research, this is the first sign that Marine Corps Procurement was going off the rails.
More to come.
