Why the Multi-Role Support Ship risks inheriting a counterinsurgency concept

What is the panel's view of Britain's proposed Multi-Role Support Ship?

Its flexibility is attractive, but a light raiding concept may not carry the equipment or mass that Royal Marines need when they must fight as an infantry brigade in a peer war.

The panel argues that the Royal Marines have historically alternated between commando raiding and fighting as a full brigade, with the latter requiring more vehicles, stores, and lift. MRSS may preserve too much of a light, dispersed counterinsurgency model just as peer conflict again demands formation-level combat power. Dr. Clarke describes an alternative in which the Marines and two Army strike brigades share an amphibious wheeled vehicle family. That arrangement could give Britain a first assault force and compatible follow-on brigades able to move across water without relying entirely on ports, ferries, or the Channel Tunnel.