This Quadcopter Could Keep Marines Spread Throughout the Pacific Supplied

“An army marches on its stomach.” The adage, attributed alternately to Napoleon Bonaparte or Frederick the Great, remains as accurate now as when first spoken. And though the quote references an army, the proverb is today more applicable to the United States Marine Corps of tomorrow.

Force Design 2030

The Marine Corps is currently in the throes of enormous change. In acknowledgment of the threat posed by an increasingly assertive Chinese foreign policy, the Corps is implementing Force Design 2030. The force redesign attempts to transform the Marine Corps from a land force optimized for counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East to a distributed, decentralized force with a lighter, more amphibious presence.

As a part of Force Design 2030, groups of semi-autonomous Marines spread out throughout the Pacific would conduct search-and-destroy missions, hunting down enemy surface vessels and even submarines using a wide variety of new weaponry. From remotely-operated…