Which I doubt quite a bit.They say "compared to the size and budget it is the best quality army in the world". These are words from a relative of mine, who serves as a Major in ground forcers.
Which is better, Army, Marines, or Navy?
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Kashluk
Menno, you told me to ask from people who've actually served - well surprise, surprise they call Finland's military one of the best in the world Which I doubt quite a bit.
They say "compared to the size and budget it is the best quality army in the world". These are words from a relative of mine, who serves as a Major in ground forcers.
Which I doubt quite a bit.They say "compared to the size and budget it is the best quality army in the world". These are words from a relative of mine, who serves as a Major in ground forcers.
If you're referring to size and budget, Israel probably has the best military in the world. It's like an ant that can lift X amount of it's body weight. Finland though has an excellent defensive force, but they're pretty much incapable of serious offensive operations. That being said, unless you were to bomb the hell out of Finland, it wouldn't be the easiest country to take over. As a soldier, I'd say taking over Germany would be easier than taking Finland (again, that depends how aggressive and how prepared the country that's doing the taking over is).Kashluk wrote:Menno, you told me to ask from people who've actually served - well surprise, surprise they call Finland's military one of the best in the world
They say "compared to the size and budget it is the best quality army in the world". These are words from a relative of mine, who serves as a Major in ground forcers.
-
Kashluk
That part about being incapable of serious offensive operations is so, very true. We're the most northern and eastern border of European Union and pretty much all of our armed forces are kept guarding those dark forests from smugglers and illegal aliens...
Hey, the fact that our best tanks are *used* German tanks tells something. Leopard, wee.
Anyways, thanks for your enlightening posts. They've been really helpful.
Hey, the fact that our best tanks are *used* German tanks tells something. Leopard, wee.
Anyways, thanks for your enlightening posts. They've been really helpful.
Yeah yeah, talking about the military is good and all that, but what about my posts about the women! Haha, that's what's most important!Kashluk wrote:That part about being incapable of serious offensive operations is so, very true. We're the most northern and eastern border of European Union and pretty much all of our armed forces are kept guarding those dark forests from smugglers and illegal aliens...
Hey, the fact that our best tanks are *used* German tanks tells something. Leopard, wee.
Anyways, thanks for your enlightening posts. They've been really helpful.
Doesn't Finland still have a few old German WWII tanks? Like the Panther, or the Tiger tank? Maybe a few Mk IV's? Hell, if your lucky, a King Tiger or two. Those things may be obsolete, but they are still badass after over 50 years of technological improvement since then (1940's).Hey, the fact that our best tanks are *used* German tanks tells something. Leopard, wee.
The British military certainly does get stuck in "overseas actions" more than the rest of Europe put together. As the British goverment is very stingy when it comes to spending money on the military; the Army, Navy and Air Force put the emphasis on training as it's better to have well trained and seasoned personnel with 2nd rate equipment than have 2nd rate personnel with the latest hi-tech kit.avenger69ie wrote:actually i've heard the british forces are the power to contend with in europe, dunno how much truth there is in that though
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Kashluk
Nah, no German WW2 tanks, but Russian made T-72 M1 is still hot iron around here. Not to mention BMP-2...
--> http://www.mil.fi/kalustoesittely/00052_en.html
--> http://www.mil.fi/kalustoesittely/00054_en.html
I guess, if Finland was to fight a war against some country this day, they'd first think our troops to be the Red Fucking Army. Too much soviet equipment around, it gives me the creeps...
--> http://www.mil.fi/kalustoesittely/00052_en.html
--> http://www.mil.fi/kalustoesittely/00054_en.html
I guess, if Finland was to fight a war against some country this day, they'd first think our troops to be the Red Fucking Army. Too much soviet equipment around, it gives me the creeps...
-
Bridgeburner
- Wanderer
- Posts: 400
- Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2003 1:12 pm
- Location: Den Haag, Netherlands
- Contact:
"I'd like to have two Armies-"
(USMC)
"One for display, with lovely guns, tanks, little Soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals and dear little Regimental officers, who would be deeply concerned over their General's bowel movements, or their Colonel's piles; an Army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country."
(U.S. Army)
"The other would be the REAL one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would NOT be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That's the Army in which I should like to fight"
"This is one of my favorite debates, so lets kick it off with these failures of the Mc or amphibious equivalents not another part of a joint operation failing. For example the Airborne took and held the bridges leading up to the Rhine river over Arnhem, it was tank-infantry XXX Armored Corps that failed to reach them that hurt Operation Market-Garden in 1944. For all the bragging marines are fond of doing about themselves, the FACTS are that the U.S. Army actually did MORE amphibious landings in WWII than the Mc did, gaining more ground at less casualties because THEY FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO IT BETTER! The U.S. Army was the first to land Airborne troops BEHIND beach defenses, using vertical envelopment tactics. On D-Day, 2 x U.S. Army Airborne Divisions, the 82nd Airborne and 101st dropped in total darkness behind the planned Utah beachhead miles deep in enemy-controlled territory. When morning came, and the troops landed only 12 died thanks to the Airborne pinning down the enemy's reinforcements and smashing his command and control. The 82nd Airborne had freed the first French town from the combined-arms German Army, at St. Mere-Eglise. The 101st took out enemy artillery positions and the town of Carentan. Where there were no Airborne landings, at Omaha Beach casualties were extremely heavy exactly like a Mcstyle frontalist approach seen earlier at Tarawa. Watch the HBO mini-series "Band of Brothers" or Stephen Ambrose's book by the same name and learn about what "E" Company, of the 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division did in WWII.
U.S. Army Soldiers, not marines did the lion's share of the amphibious landings and fighting/dying in WWII, a point lost in today's re-writing of history by Mcpropagandists and fawning teenage wannabes
In the Pacific, General MacArthur did a fantastic job of combining-arms to achieve "tri-phibious" operational maneuver (decades before Bill Lind had to shame the Mc into nominally accepting "maneuver warfare" in the 1980s), gaining far more ground from the Japanese than the glorified Navy/Mc led blood bath in the Central Pacific. And it all is a result from THINKING, actually studying war and employing the operational art, admitting to problems and SOLVING them not making up propaganda stories and excuses blaming the other services or any convenient scapegoat. Look at the map below, it doesn't take a "rocket scientist" to see that the U.S. Army under MacArthur took far more territory from the Japanese at less cost in American lives than the Navy/Mc. In fact, what the Mc did only came at the help of the U.S. ARMY. The Mc in typical brag-about itself-BS-fashion took a tiny point and then made it into a big lie. While landing unopposed at Guadalcanal, they began to foist the lie that they were the ones who secured the victory, when the truth was they couldn't even hold onto their perimeter without U.S. ARMY help, and conked out and left it up to the U.S. ARMY TO DEFEAT the Japanese completely from the island.
"The early stages of the campaign were dominated by Navy-Marine components of the interservice team. But as the battle continued, Army units assumed the burden of interservice coordination and, in the end, secured the American victory on the ground."
So Guadalcanal as a mc victory is a LIE.
You then study the Central Pacific campaigns, and even there THE U.S. ARMY is taking on over half the work. When the Mc does Tarawa its a botched blood bath of 3,301 casualties! By raiding and not TAKING Makin island, they alerted the enemy and the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division pays for it.
Tarawa another Mc LIE.
NOTHING that the Mc did in WWII was done by themselves of any significance, it was only done "jointly" with the U.S. Army. Yet you'd never realize this reading Mcdistorted histories or being told BS trash-the-other-service tales while at enlisted MCRD or officer TBS! Hell no! The uninformed citizen actually thinks the loud-mouthed, distort-the-record-constantly-to-have-something-to-brag about marines did it all. What a travesty to all the U.S. Army Soldiers that died in the Pacific war just so the American people would be willfully lied to by the mc propaganda machine.
"Later the commander of the V Amphibious Corps would declare that Tarawa, with its 'terrible loss of life,' had 'no particular strategic importance',"
Basically 1,000 marines died beause the Navy/Mc team wasn't smart enough to execute maneuver warfare like MacArthur was doing in the SouthWest Pacific and BYPASS enemy strongpoints and cut them off from their supplies to get rid of them. No glory and medals in that..or body bags, either.
When you read the OBJECTIVE U. S. Army histories there is always "lessons learned" and mistakes identified and corrected, not this flaunting and bragging one reads in Mc propagandist documents. For example "lessons learned" created the DUKW amphibious truck. A U.S. Army invention enabled them to rapidly resupply from ship-to-shore, driving directly to the troops inland vital supplies of ammunition, food and water. The war was almost over before the Mc employed them. Remember the the DD amphibious Sherman tank? U.S. Army armor units used them to give battle-winning fire support on Omaha Beach, and to drive deep inland on Utah Beach. Or the C-47? Or the "T" series of troop parachutes...the M113 Gavin amphibious tracked AFV, the UH-1 "Huey" turbine-engined helicopter still used by the USMC??? How about the HueyCobra attack helicopter? The USMC didn't want the Cobra and tried to stop the U.S. Army from buying them. The USMC didn't even want to ARM their helicopters and had to beg Army Huey gunships to protect them in Vietnam!
ALL CREATED BY THE U.S. ARMY!
NOT THE Mc!
Yet today...you'll hear marines eat their chests about how great "their" Cobras are....To show how the U.S. Mc has NOT advanced the state of amphibious warfare, compare the WWII British 79th Armored Division's specialized tanks that could lay mats on beaches for wheeled vehicles to pass, fill in ditches with fascines, lay assault bridging etc. to what the Mc does to get tanks ashore. The Mc does none of these things because as a colonel told me; "Its too hard to get tanks off beaches, so we just don't do it". How convenient? We just will not take tanks on amphibious assaults and make it easier on everyone, including the enemy. You see, the Mc doesn't want to go far inland, now they have a built-in excuse. And this is traditional; the Mc wants to trash talk and get there quickly before there is heavy fighting, then let the U.S. Army do the hard fighting to defeat the enemy. No wonder MacArthur kept the gyrenes out of the SWP area of operations!
The Official U.S. Army History states:
U.S. Army road to victory in the Pacific: New Guinea Campaign
"Aircraft, ships, landing craft, ammunition, medicine, equipment�in short, the sinews of war�gradually found their way to MacArthur's fighting men. Still, without flexible senior commanders who adapted their plans to wring full advantage of Japanese weakness, the campaign could have degenerated into a meatgrinder along the coast which is what the enemy wanted.
Instead the speed of MacArthur's seaborne envelopments consistently surprised the Japanese. At the strongpoints where they expected to fight a delaying action, MacArthur bypassed them. Where they were weak, he overwhelmed them. Between Wau and Sansapor 110,000 of the emperor's Soldiers and Sailors died from enemy action, disease, or starvation in the pestilent jungles, the cold mountains, or in the empty seas. Another 30,000 were isolated in New Guinea and neutralized. Add to this the more than 57,000 imperial Soldiers and 39,000 Sailors marooned on New Britain and the totality of Allied victory in the New Guinea Campaign comes into sharp relief.
Victory on the ground depended on local air superiority which enabled the Navy to carry the ground forces safely forward to the next objective. The infantry held the ground and allowed the engineers to construct a forward air base, and the cycle began again. Against this sophisticated employment of combined arms warfare, modern technology, and industrial might, Tokyo asked its hardened veterans to do the impossible. Japanese infantry operations, brave, determined, but futile, were swept aside by Allied joint operations relying on the combined air, naval, and ground firepower essential for the conduct of modern war. MacArthur bypassed the jungle and left it to devour the Japanese Soldiers isolated in its interior.
But above all New Guinea was the story of the courage of the GI who could always be counted on to move forward against a determined foe. It was the ordinary American Soldier who endured the worst deprivations that the debilitating New Guinea climate and terrain could offer. It was the lowly GI who was the brains, the muscle, the blood, and the heart and soul of the great army that came of age in the Southwest Pacific Area in 1943 and 1944. In one tough fight after another, he never lost a battle to the Japanese. Those accomplishments and sacrifices are forever his and deserve to be remembered by all."
The only problem was after WWII ended, the humble ("Before Honor is humility"--so if you are not humble you have no clue what honor is despite McTV recruiting commercials to the contrary) U.S. Army Southwest Pacific vets went home to restart their lives and didn't go around beating their chests with slogans like "once a marine always a marine" and telling everyone how they had won the war all by themselves when the Mc was only fighting less than a quarter of the war against the weakest, most ill equipped opponent. And badly at that--using frontalist tactics. A better slogan, a true one is: "Once a human being, always a human being". Something marine egotists need to relearn.
U.S. Army National Guard troops, not marines lead the way off Omaha Beach in WWII...in case you didn't see "Saving Private Ryan", how many marine EGAs did you see on their uniforms?....none?..wonder why?
The USMC didn't even fight the world-class, combined-arms (tanks-panzers, artillery, engineers, Paratroopers, Waffen-SS, rocket artillery, mortars etc. etc.) German Army in WWII!---the U.S. Army fought and defeated the German Army in WWII, not the USMC. A truth conveniently not mentioned to young people as they are brainwashed with Marine Corpe superiority lies at basic training. And only the supreme USMC Egotist would use a full scale retreat at Chosin in Korea to try to score brownie-ego points today, almost 50 years later! A retreat is still a retreat no matter how good you try to keep your vanity and image up. These come from poor force structure and technotactical leadership and "Eagle, Globe and Anchor" (EGA) stupid machismo didn't then and will not today change the bad result. Just as the "spirit of the bayonet" led millions of men to their deaths in the mud filled trenches of WWI. None of today's baby-boom and gen-X/Y USMC were even there at Chosin resevoir so they have no place to even begin to criticize another service with the smug air that they would have done any better when all they offer as proof is empty boasts and no tactics, techniques, procedures or even ideas of how to do better. A "young punk" is an old-fashioned term for not fully cooked French bread and applies here to this current USMC generation that wants to brag off the exploits of the dead or no-longer-in-the-service, and use then their name as a shield for their current Marine Corp incompetence and Marine Corp corruption.
Also - The MARINE CORP HAS THE HIGHEST ACCIDENT/FATALITY RATING OF THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES!
More Proof of the Mc asleep while on their watch:
1. Loss of Panama Canal, not a single USMC voice in protest..but I guess if you are not really interested in amphibious warfare, not being able to transit from one ocean to another would be a built-in excuse not to get there in time to fight, huh?
2. Possible CHICOM control of Panama canal by private enterprise subterfuge.
3. Selection of Mercedes-Benz Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) instead of a MIL-SPEC combat vehicle that could be armored for the V-22. I guess if you want to go 4-wheeling in the desert at 29 Palms, why not get paid to do it?
4. Satellite targeting and ASM destruction of ALL surface ships from space. Yet we still throw BILLIONS down the drain on building amphib ships that provide pork barrel to keep politicians re-elected, though in a shooting war might get our men inscribed in a monument of the dead at city hall. We are not even building amphibs as fast as the old ones are scrapped, thus amphib warfare means are dying while the 172,000 man/woman payroll of the mc stands fast. Can't get them to the fight, but they are there in "readiness". Right.
5. Elimination of ANGLICO units to control naval gunfire, what little there is.
6. Where are the battleships? Is HQMC willing to cough up 4,000 man-slots and insist 2 x Iowa class battleships are manned? Why should they? They are not "forced entry" troops for the warfighting regional CINCs as a MCCDC Captain just wrote me. We do not have to be concerned about a few rogue enemy Soldiers with small arms and RPGs, what can they do to an unarmored LCAC hovercraft that is going to land "where they ain't"??? As if the enemy doesn't have cell phones and radios, and doesn't buy satellite imagery from the commercial space market. But landing in the middle of nowhere to guard a base is perfect win-win situation for gyrenes: no fighting and ability to brag endlessly.
7. Why should marines care about this? They could be in the gym pumping muscles and getting tattoos so they can pick up chicks, perhaps putting those dress uniforms to use? They are marines, marines don't have to be humble and hard working studying the modern battlefield! All that technical stuff is for weak, flabby people, what matters is being fanatical and tough, we have never been beaten! (Wake island? Koh Tang? Helicopter valley? Khe Sanh? Desert One?) I suppose if the Ethiopians in WWII were "tougher" they would have used their spears more effectively and defeated the Italians who were firing rifles and machine guns at them?"
- http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/5265/ (Don't go there, trust me)
(USMC)
"One for display, with lovely guns, tanks, little Soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals and dear little Regimental officers, who would be deeply concerned over their General's bowel movements, or their Colonel's piles; an Army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country."
(U.S. Army)
"The other would be the REAL one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would NOT be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That's the Army in which I should like to fight"
"This is one of my favorite debates, so lets kick it off with these failures of the Mc or amphibious equivalents not another part of a joint operation failing. For example the Airborne took and held the bridges leading up to the Rhine river over Arnhem, it was tank-infantry XXX Armored Corps that failed to reach them that hurt Operation Market-Garden in 1944. For all the bragging marines are fond of doing about themselves, the FACTS are that the U.S. Army actually did MORE amphibious landings in WWII than the Mc did, gaining more ground at less casualties because THEY FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO IT BETTER! The U.S. Army was the first to land Airborne troops BEHIND beach defenses, using vertical envelopment tactics. On D-Day, 2 x U.S. Army Airborne Divisions, the 82nd Airborne and 101st dropped in total darkness behind the planned Utah beachhead miles deep in enemy-controlled territory. When morning came, and the troops landed only 12 died thanks to the Airborne pinning down the enemy's reinforcements and smashing his command and control. The 82nd Airborne had freed the first French town from the combined-arms German Army, at St. Mere-Eglise. The 101st took out enemy artillery positions and the town of Carentan. Where there were no Airborne landings, at Omaha Beach casualties were extremely heavy exactly like a Mcstyle frontalist approach seen earlier at Tarawa. Watch the HBO mini-series "Band of Brothers" or Stephen Ambrose's book by the same name and learn about what "E" Company, of the 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division did in WWII.
U.S. Army Soldiers, not marines did the lion's share of the amphibious landings and fighting/dying in WWII, a point lost in today's re-writing of history by Mcpropagandists and fawning teenage wannabes
In the Pacific, General MacArthur did a fantastic job of combining-arms to achieve "tri-phibious" operational maneuver (decades before Bill Lind had to shame the Mc into nominally accepting "maneuver warfare" in the 1980s), gaining far more ground from the Japanese than the glorified Navy/Mc led blood bath in the Central Pacific. And it all is a result from THINKING, actually studying war and employing the operational art, admitting to problems and SOLVING them not making up propaganda stories and excuses blaming the other services or any convenient scapegoat. Look at the map below, it doesn't take a "rocket scientist" to see that the U.S. Army under MacArthur took far more territory from the Japanese at less cost in American lives than the Navy/Mc. In fact, what the Mc did only came at the help of the U.S. ARMY. The Mc in typical brag-about itself-BS-fashion took a tiny point and then made it into a big lie. While landing unopposed at Guadalcanal, they began to foist the lie that they were the ones who secured the victory, when the truth was they couldn't even hold onto their perimeter without U.S. ARMY help, and conked out and left it up to the U.S. ARMY TO DEFEAT the Japanese completely from the island.
"The early stages of the campaign were dominated by Navy-Marine components of the interservice team. But as the battle continued, Army units assumed the burden of interservice coordination and, in the end, secured the American victory on the ground."
So Guadalcanal as a mc victory is a LIE.
You then study the Central Pacific campaigns, and even there THE U.S. ARMY is taking on over half the work. When the Mc does Tarawa its a botched blood bath of 3,301 casualties! By raiding and not TAKING Makin island, they alerted the enemy and the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division pays for it.
Tarawa another Mc LIE.
NOTHING that the Mc did in WWII was done by themselves of any significance, it was only done "jointly" with the U.S. Army. Yet you'd never realize this reading Mcdistorted histories or being told BS trash-the-other-service tales while at enlisted MCRD or officer TBS! Hell no! The uninformed citizen actually thinks the loud-mouthed, distort-the-record-constantly-to-have-something-to-brag about marines did it all. What a travesty to all the U.S. Army Soldiers that died in the Pacific war just so the American people would be willfully lied to by the mc propaganda machine.
"Later the commander of the V Amphibious Corps would declare that Tarawa, with its 'terrible loss of life,' had 'no particular strategic importance',"
Basically 1,000 marines died beause the Navy/Mc team wasn't smart enough to execute maneuver warfare like MacArthur was doing in the SouthWest Pacific and BYPASS enemy strongpoints and cut them off from their supplies to get rid of them. No glory and medals in that..or body bags, either.
When you read the OBJECTIVE U. S. Army histories there is always "lessons learned" and mistakes identified and corrected, not this flaunting and bragging one reads in Mc propagandist documents. For example "lessons learned" created the DUKW amphibious truck. A U.S. Army invention enabled them to rapidly resupply from ship-to-shore, driving directly to the troops inland vital supplies of ammunition, food and water. The war was almost over before the Mc employed them. Remember the the DD amphibious Sherman tank? U.S. Army armor units used them to give battle-winning fire support on Omaha Beach, and to drive deep inland on Utah Beach. Or the C-47? Or the "T" series of troop parachutes...the M113 Gavin amphibious tracked AFV, the UH-1 "Huey" turbine-engined helicopter still used by the USMC??? How about the HueyCobra attack helicopter? The USMC didn't want the Cobra and tried to stop the U.S. Army from buying them. The USMC didn't even want to ARM their helicopters and had to beg Army Huey gunships to protect them in Vietnam!
ALL CREATED BY THE U.S. ARMY!
NOT THE Mc!
Yet today...you'll hear marines eat their chests about how great "their" Cobras are....To show how the U.S. Mc has NOT advanced the state of amphibious warfare, compare the WWII British 79th Armored Division's specialized tanks that could lay mats on beaches for wheeled vehicles to pass, fill in ditches with fascines, lay assault bridging etc. to what the Mc does to get tanks ashore. The Mc does none of these things because as a colonel told me; "Its too hard to get tanks off beaches, so we just don't do it". How convenient? We just will not take tanks on amphibious assaults and make it easier on everyone, including the enemy. You see, the Mc doesn't want to go far inland, now they have a built-in excuse. And this is traditional; the Mc wants to trash talk and get there quickly before there is heavy fighting, then let the U.S. Army do the hard fighting to defeat the enemy. No wonder MacArthur kept the gyrenes out of the SWP area of operations!
The Official U.S. Army History states:
U.S. Army road to victory in the Pacific: New Guinea Campaign
"Aircraft, ships, landing craft, ammunition, medicine, equipment�in short, the sinews of war�gradually found their way to MacArthur's fighting men. Still, without flexible senior commanders who adapted their plans to wring full advantage of Japanese weakness, the campaign could have degenerated into a meatgrinder along the coast which is what the enemy wanted.
Instead the speed of MacArthur's seaborne envelopments consistently surprised the Japanese. At the strongpoints where they expected to fight a delaying action, MacArthur bypassed them. Where they were weak, he overwhelmed them. Between Wau and Sansapor 110,000 of the emperor's Soldiers and Sailors died from enemy action, disease, or starvation in the pestilent jungles, the cold mountains, or in the empty seas. Another 30,000 were isolated in New Guinea and neutralized. Add to this the more than 57,000 imperial Soldiers and 39,000 Sailors marooned on New Britain and the totality of Allied victory in the New Guinea Campaign comes into sharp relief.
Victory on the ground depended on local air superiority which enabled the Navy to carry the ground forces safely forward to the next objective. The infantry held the ground and allowed the engineers to construct a forward air base, and the cycle began again. Against this sophisticated employment of combined arms warfare, modern technology, and industrial might, Tokyo asked its hardened veterans to do the impossible. Japanese infantry operations, brave, determined, but futile, were swept aside by Allied joint operations relying on the combined air, naval, and ground firepower essential for the conduct of modern war. MacArthur bypassed the jungle and left it to devour the Japanese Soldiers isolated in its interior.
But above all New Guinea was the story of the courage of the GI who could always be counted on to move forward against a determined foe. It was the ordinary American Soldier who endured the worst deprivations that the debilitating New Guinea climate and terrain could offer. It was the lowly GI who was the brains, the muscle, the blood, and the heart and soul of the great army that came of age in the Southwest Pacific Area in 1943 and 1944. In one tough fight after another, he never lost a battle to the Japanese. Those accomplishments and sacrifices are forever his and deserve to be remembered by all."
The only problem was after WWII ended, the humble ("Before Honor is humility"--so if you are not humble you have no clue what honor is despite McTV recruiting commercials to the contrary) U.S. Army Southwest Pacific vets went home to restart their lives and didn't go around beating their chests with slogans like "once a marine always a marine" and telling everyone how they had won the war all by themselves when the Mc was only fighting less than a quarter of the war against the weakest, most ill equipped opponent. And badly at that--using frontalist tactics. A better slogan, a true one is: "Once a human being, always a human being". Something marine egotists need to relearn.
U.S. Army National Guard troops, not marines lead the way off Omaha Beach in WWII...in case you didn't see "Saving Private Ryan", how many marine EGAs did you see on their uniforms?....none?..wonder why?
The USMC didn't even fight the world-class, combined-arms (tanks-panzers, artillery, engineers, Paratroopers, Waffen-SS, rocket artillery, mortars etc. etc.) German Army in WWII!---the U.S. Army fought and defeated the German Army in WWII, not the USMC. A truth conveniently not mentioned to young people as they are brainwashed with Marine Corpe superiority lies at basic training. And only the supreme USMC Egotist would use a full scale retreat at Chosin in Korea to try to score brownie-ego points today, almost 50 years later! A retreat is still a retreat no matter how good you try to keep your vanity and image up. These come from poor force structure and technotactical leadership and "Eagle, Globe and Anchor" (EGA) stupid machismo didn't then and will not today change the bad result. Just as the "spirit of the bayonet" led millions of men to their deaths in the mud filled trenches of WWI. None of today's baby-boom and gen-X/Y USMC were even there at Chosin resevoir so they have no place to even begin to criticize another service with the smug air that they would have done any better when all they offer as proof is empty boasts and no tactics, techniques, procedures or even ideas of how to do better. A "young punk" is an old-fashioned term for not fully cooked French bread and applies here to this current USMC generation that wants to brag off the exploits of the dead or no-longer-in-the-service, and use then their name as a shield for their current Marine Corp incompetence and Marine Corp corruption.
Also - The MARINE CORP HAS THE HIGHEST ACCIDENT/FATALITY RATING OF THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES!
More Proof of the Mc asleep while on their watch:
1. Loss of Panama Canal, not a single USMC voice in protest..but I guess if you are not really interested in amphibious warfare, not being able to transit from one ocean to another would be a built-in excuse not to get there in time to fight, huh?
2. Possible CHICOM control of Panama canal by private enterprise subterfuge.
3. Selection of Mercedes-Benz Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) instead of a MIL-SPEC combat vehicle that could be armored for the V-22. I guess if you want to go 4-wheeling in the desert at 29 Palms, why not get paid to do it?
4. Satellite targeting and ASM destruction of ALL surface ships from space. Yet we still throw BILLIONS down the drain on building amphib ships that provide pork barrel to keep politicians re-elected, though in a shooting war might get our men inscribed in a monument of the dead at city hall. We are not even building amphibs as fast as the old ones are scrapped, thus amphib warfare means are dying while the 172,000 man/woman payroll of the mc stands fast. Can't get them to the fight, but they are there in "readiness". Right.
5. Elimination of ANGLICO units to control naval gunfire, what little there is.
6. Where are the battleships? Is HQMC willing to cough up 4,000 man-slots and insist 2 x Iowa class battleships are manned? Why should they? They are not "forced entry" troops for the warfighting regional CINCs as a MCCDC Captain just wrote me. We do not have to be concerned about a few rogue enemy Soldiers with small arms and RPGs, what can they do to an unarmored LCAC hovercraft that is going to land "where they ain't"??? As if the enemy doesn't have cell phones and radios, and doesn't buy satellite imagery from the commercial space market. But landing in the middle of nowhere to guard a base is perfect win-win situation for gyrenes: no fighting and ability to brag endlessly.
7. Why should marines care about this? They could be in the gym pumping muscles and getting tattoos so they can pick up chicks, perhaps putting those dress uniforms to use? They are marines, marines don't have to be humble and hard working studying the modern battlefield! All that technical stuff is for weak, flabby people, what matters is being fanatical and tough, we have never been beaten! (Wake island? Koh Tang? Helicopter valley? Khe Sanh? Desert One?) I suppose if the Ethiopians in WWII were "tougher" they would have used their spears more effectively and defeated the Italians who were firing rifles and machine guns at them?"
- http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/5265/ (Don't go there, trust me)
Last edited by Hammer on Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
Excellent post man; figured I'd also add a few things in my reply.
The first being most of the ground combat doctrines come from the Army. To those who don't know what it is, doctrines are fundamental principles that guide actions. It is definitive enough to guide specific operations, but adaptable enough to cover diverse and varied situations. A Doctrine describes how the Army thinks about applying the basic principles of war. It touches all aspects of the Army and is in use at all levels from training through modernization planning.
So you may think when you read that "yadda yadda, thats nice and all, but what the fuck does all that mean?". A Doctrine is basically a blueprint. The Army has doctrines and battle drills. The Marines do not have doctrines at all (to my knowledge). The advantage for the Army is that each operation has a basic battle drill skeleton. Now everyone knows that when the bullets start flying, everything rarely goes as planned. So the Army Doctrine has FRAGO's [fragmentary orders] and is easily adaptable to whatever the situation requires. So when the Army troops hit the ground, the unit (through training and it's officers) already have a good idea of what they're going to do and how they're going to do it.
Marines, on the other hand because they lack doctrines, have to do alot of improvising once they hit the ground. This makes them extremely dynamic and flexible, but requires them to do alot more work than they would have to. It also, as Hammer points out, causes a great deal of casualties. The Army tends to scout the area out thoroughly, and then commit forces to whatever objective is at hand. This greatly cuts down on the number of casualties, at the expense of time. The Marines, because they don't have a set course of action, put themselves in situations where things could get compromised (resulting in more casualties), but the advantage is they can possibly do things more quickly (if they don't get bogged down). So to summarize, the principle of the Army is: "Let me check out this area thoroughly, to make sure shit doesn't happen; and if I see a location where shit can possibly happen, figure out a way to deal with it beforehand". The principle of the Marines is: "Let me go through this area now, and if shit happens, figure out a way to deal with it as it happens.". You can see where more casualties (and as a result of those casualties, failure) can occur from that mentality.
So in summary, the Marines are useful (and excel) in several roles, but the media gives them this "super-hero unbeatable, can-do-anything" status, which is an insult to the men in the Army who do the majority of the fighting in the heavy ground battles. I think the Marines are ideal for embassy deployment and as a 911 force, because a Marine detachment is quickly deployable (within 5-10 hours). This allows the Army Airborne units to instead deploy behind enemy lines and do what they're trained to do, and do best. The Marines are not designed to be a "take-over" force, their main purpose is to secure a location until the medium/heavier forces arrive.
There's actually a real reason for this. I don't know exactly when the shift occured, but at one point in America's history the President only had complete control of the Marines, and Congress had control of the Army (in terms of approving it to be deployed; not command). The reasoning behind this was that since the Army was going to be made up of such a large amount of civilian volunteers, and were going to see the bulk of the fighting, that Congress (the "citizens's voice") should determine whether or not to approve the President's decision that they could be used. The President was given direct control of the Marines to secure (if he desired) a lodgehead until he could get approval to bring in the main force.
That's what the Marines are designed and trained to do. Hammer points out alot of good points also that need to be looked at. But this false stigma that Marines are America's main fighting force is a joke. It's the equivelent of me saying that you can win wars with only with Special Forces. Marines play an important role in our armed forces, and they are necessary. But they do not, and should not, be considered superior to the Army; simply due to the fact that the Army has such a large variety and scope of missions and responsibilities, and is self-sufficient, that it performs a majority of the ground combat. About Marines training being so "superior" to the Army, well I point to a quote by a General James Gavin, of the 82nd Airborne Division: "Show me a man who will jump out of an airplane, and I'll show you a man who'll fight." Marines have an important role in our armed forces, but when the media blows their role out of proportion, it's a gross misrepresentation.
They differ in certain types/styles of missions as well. Marines are more focused on very short-term, quick missions while the Army is more war-fighting. However, the Army is starting to change some units to become short and quick too. The reason for this is that the combat theater now calls for short conflicts, battles, and wars (no more long wars like Korea or Vietnam).
The Army focuses on officers to lead from the front while the Marine officers are more of the "backseat drivers" in the rear (with little field time). Army officers are involved in a great deal more of actual combat. A famous quote from General Gavin of the 82nd Airborne:
"When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many."
I leave you with a bit of WWII history: The 82nd Airborne Division was pulled back to England, it had seen 33 days of bloody combat and suffered 5,245 paratroopers killed, wounded or missing during behind-enemy-lines airborne operations from the prelimnary invasion of Normandy (and afterwards). The Division's post-battle report read:
"...33 days of action without relief, without replacements. Every mission accomplished. No ground gained was ever relinquished."
The first being most of the ground combat doctrines come from the Army. To those who don't know what it is, doctrines are fundamental principles that guide actions. It is definitive enough to guide specific operations, but adaptable enough to cover diverse and varied situations. A Doctrine describes how the Army thinks about applying the basic principles of war. It touches all aspects of the Army and is in use at all levels from training through modernization planning.
So you may think when you read that "yadda yadda, thats nice and all, but what the fuck does all that mean?". A Doctrine is basically a blueprint. The Army has doctrines and battle drills. The Marines do not have doctrines at all (to my knowledge). The advantage for the Army is that each operation has a basic battle drill skeleton. Now everyone knows that when the bullets start flying, everything rarely goes as planned. So the Army Doctrine has FRAGO's [fragmentary orders] and is easily adaptable to whatever the situation requires. So when the Army troops hit the ground, the unit (through training and it's officers) already have a good idea of what they're going to do and how they're going to do it.
Marines, on the other hand because they lack doctrines, have to do alot of improvising once they hit the ground. This makes them extremely dynamic and flexible, but requires them to do alot more work than they would have to. It also, as Hammer points out, causes a great deal of casualties. The Army tends to scout the area out thoroughly, and then commit forces to whatever objective is at hand. This greatly cuts down on the number of casualties, at the expense of time. The Marines, because they don't have a set course of action, put themselves in situations where things could get compromised (resulting in more casualties), but the advantage is they can possibly do things more quickly (if they don't get bogged down). So to summarize, the principle of the Army is: "Let me check out this area thoroughly, to make sure shit doesn't happen; and if I see a location where shit can possibly happen, figure out a way to deal with it beforehand". The principle of the Marines is: "Let me go through this area now, and if shit happens, figure out a way to deal with it as it happens.". You can see where more casualties (and as a result of those casualties, failure) can occur from that mentality.
So in summary, the Marines are useful (and excel) in several roles, but the media gives them this "super-hero unbeatable, can-do-anything" status, which is an insult to the men in the Army who do the majority of the fighting in the heavy ground battles. I think the Marines are ideal for embassy deployment and as a 911 force, because a Marine detachment is quickly deployable (within 5-10 hours). This allows the Army Airborne units to instead deploy behind enemy lines and do what they're trained to do, and do best. The Marines are not designed to be a "take-over" force, their main purpose is to secure a location until the medium/heavier forces arrive.
There's actually a real reason for this. I don't know exactly when the shift occured, but at one point in America's history the President only had complete control of the Marines, and Congress had control of the Army (in terms of approving it to be deployed; not command). The reasoning behind this was that since the Army was going to be made up of such a large amount of civilian volunteers, and were going to see the bulk of the fighting, that Congress (the "citizens's voice") should determine whether or not to approve the President's decision that they could be used. The President was given direct control of the Marines to secure (if he desired) a lodgehead until he could get approval to bring in the main force.
That's what the Marines are designed and trained to do. Hammer points out alot of good points also that need to be looked at. But this false stigma that Marines are America's main fighting force is a joke. It's the equivelent of me saying that you can win wars with only with Special Forces. Marines play an important role in our armed forces, and they are necessary. But they do not, and should not, be considered superior to the Army; simply due to the fact that the Army has such a large variety and scope of missions and responsibilities, and is self-sufficient, that it performs a majority of the ground combat. About Marines training being so "superior" to the Army, well I point to a quote by a General James Gavin, of the 82nd Airborne Division: "Show me a man who will jump out of an airplane, and I'll show you a man who'll fight." Marines have an important role in our armed forces, but when the media blows their role out of proportion, it's a gross misrepresentation.
They differ in certain types/styles of missions as well. Marines are more focused on very short-term, quick missions while the Army is more war-fighting. However, the Army is starting to change some units to become short and quick too. The reason for this is that the combat theater now calls for short conflicts, battles, and wars (no more long wars like Korea or Vietnam).
The Army focuses on officers to lead from the front while the Marine officers are more of the "backseat drivers" in the rear (with little field time). Army officers are involved in a great deal more of actual combat. A famous quote from General Gavin of the 82nd Airborne:
"When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many."
I leave you with a bit of WWII history: The 82nd Airborne Division was pulled back to England, it had seen 33 days of bloody combat and suffered 5,245 paratroopers killed, wounded or missing during behind-enemy-lines airborne operations from the prelimnary invasion of Normandy (and afterwards). The Division's post-battle report read:
"...33 days of action without relief, without replacements. Every mission accomplished. No ground gained was ever relinquished."
Last edited by Menno on Tue Nov 04, 2003 3:10 am, edited 3 times in total.
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T51b
- Scarf-wearing n00b
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Wed Oct 29, 2003 12:13 am
- Location: land of awnawld, cawlifawnya
My best friend is a tanker (19K) with A Co 1/64 AR, 3rd Infantry Division. He saw ALOT of combat in Op Iraqi Freedom (His tank was the second one in Baghdad, and incidentally was part of the Platoon that shot that hotel that killed the Al Jazeera TV crew), and he hated it. First off, the air conditioner and heater has been known to cause fires in the M1 and kill the crew, so he said they were driving in 120-30 degree weather in full MOPP gear with no air conditioner. Second off, he said he didn't even SEE an Iraqi tank; the Airforce took them all out, so all they did was kill Iraqi infantry, he said it was like playing a video game, the RPGs were just bouncing off of the tanks as they plowed into Baghdad and AK fire just pinged off the sides. He liked all that, but what he didn't like was when he got home:Bridgeburner wrote:if i'd have to join the army i'd go for a position as a tanker. driving through the desert in my nice airconditioned tank, blow up a few buildings.
THEY MADE HIM MOW LAWNS.
Thats right, see my above posts. If your in a combat arms unit, and your not in war, expect to be a janitor.
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Temaperacl
- Vault Veteran
- Posts: 292
- Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2002 11:51 am
Identify your sources. Especially when using the copy/paste method.Hammer wrote:"I'd like to have two Armies-"
...
more effectively and defeated the Italians who were firing rifles and machine guns at them?
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/5265/
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The Gaijin
- Wanderer
- Posts: 414
- Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 4:24 am
- Location: Pittsburg, California
Thanks cuntpunch, for turning an interesting discussion into a tard fest.PeterWoman wrote:y0 brotha, you are is a wack
i want to do a rap for u ok dude
Last edited by The Gaijin on Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
HEY WHERE THE WHITE WOMEN AT???
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Wolfman Walt
- Mamma's Gang member
- Posts: 5243
- Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2003 1:31 pm
- Location: La Grange, Kentucky
- Contact:
I was wrong in the way I phrased when I said something along those lines you just mentioned. What I meant to say is that Marines have a slightly more rigerous (spelling?) training program than regular infantry. However, tactically Army Infantry are better trained. So when the time comes for actual ground combat, Army Infantry are superior to Marines. From my own personal experiences, when elements of our brigade were in Afghanistan we always had a good degree of knowledge of what we were doing. Was it because we were the best trained, physically fit soldiers on the Earth? Of course not, but it was because we actively trained for a wide variety of tactics, so when situations did occur we were able to fall back on what we learned and adapt to cover the new situation. On the flip side, I notice alot of Marines panic when they first experience combat (and finger point). This is because they rely heavily on improvisation, and because of that they may get the feeling of being "lost"; without good leadership its easy to see how things could fall apart quickly in that regard.Hammer wrote:I think I can sum it up with one question.
If the average USMC Infantryman is better then the average U.S. Army Infantryman, why is it that their best are trained by the U.S. Army's best?
Answer: Because the USMC simply are not the best.
For example a town (who's name escapes me) in Iraq, many Marines began finger-pointing at the Army's 3rd Infantry Division for not clearing/securing an area before they moved in. Because they rushed in without properly conducting reconaissance, the Marines ran headlong into an ambush, causing around a dozen casualties. They ran straight into bottlenecks where their situation could have been compromised, and they paid the price for it. After the attack occurred, they began blaming the Army for screwing things up to the media, something along the lines of "typical Army screwup, they can never get anything done right; this area was supposed to be secured.". Let's examine the facts closely. First and foremost, unless you have everyone under lock and key, you can never have an area that's 100% secure. Secondly, why didn't the Army suffer the same situation when they went through the town a few days earlier? They in fact did, but because they analyzed the situation appropriately, they were able to eliminate any resistance they faced accordingly. Granted, it took somewhat longer, but a benefit is they didn't send 12 young men home in bodybags. The 3rd ID didn't charge right in, they took their time, performed effectively, and got the job done.
Because they got the job done, it probably ruined the morale of whatever resistance fighters there were (nothing demoralizes a soldier than having his comrades picked off one by one and him not being able to do a thing about it). When that type of amatuer soldier faces failure, he'll usually cut his losses and blends in with the local populace. That's what happened when the 3rd ID effectively passed through the town. When the Marines came in, and fell into the ambush, it caused a surge in confidence with these amatuer soldiers. Success=confidence. So when they realized they were successful, they began to engage the Marines more aggressively. Of course the Marines were able to overcome them, but at a price of 12 men. Aggressive training is one thing, but nothing ever replaces actual combat tactics, and not bravado; and the Army trains better concerning tactics than Marines do. Wars and conflicts aren't won by how many miles you can run or how many pushups you do; some of the bravest men in our nation's history were regular citizens who volunteered in wars such as WWII, performed heroically, bravely, and ultimately got the job done. Watch Army Infantrymen and Marines train and you'll see how tactically sound Army infantryman are, by a mile. Bravado is bullshit, deeds speak louder than words. I think one of the infantry regiments in the 1st Armored Divisions' motto is "Deeds...Not Words!". That sums up the Army infantryman.
Last edited by Menno on Tue Nov 04, 2003 11:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Temaperacl
- Vault Veteran
- Posts: 292
- Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2002 11:51 am
I didn't notice quotes when I first read it, so if they were there earlier, I apologize for the abrupt tone of my post.Hammer wrote:Considering it's all in quotes, why should I? The website is obviously a pain to read.Identify your sources. Especially when using the copy/paste method.
"Sorry, this site is temporarily unavailable!"
Precisely why I didn't.
As for reasons to identify your sources:
1) So that, if you take out the URLs, comments like "Look at the map below" still make sense.
2) Portions of the text that you choose to omit are still still readily available to the reader.
3) Information in the post may be easier to verify, preventing you from having to provide additional information to support the points unless you want to.
4) Readers are not under the impression that the words are yours if they miss the (misplaced) quotes.
5) It gives the reader more options- They can read the whole thing if they wish (It also gives the reader the option to skip it if they wish if you don't quote and just reference, which I tend to be in preference of, but that is another matter..)..
Anyhow, just my view on the matter- it really isn't very important, I suppose, but..
I think that town was Nasiriyah, where the 507th got lost in a sandstorm with tragic results. I've just read "The March Up" by Ray L. Smith and Bing West (both ex-Marine officers) who were imbedded in the 1st MEF on their 1,200 km push to Baghdad. Regardless of what the Army did, the Marine tanks had run the gauntlet of RPG fire in the town and cleared off, leaving the very lightly armoured Amtraks and soft skinned hummers to take their chances. The 1st MEF learnt a lot of hard lessons that day and didn't repeat the tactical errors they made here again although C3I would remain patchy at best as the various RCTs on the road(s) to Baghdad got so spread out, even elements of the same unit were out of radio range with each other.Menno wrote: For example a town (who's name escapes me) in Iraq, many Marines began finger-pointing at the Army's 3rd Infantry Division for not clearing/securing an area before they moved in. Because they rushed in without properly conducting reconaissance, the Marines ran headlong into an ambush, causing around a dozen casualties. They ran straight into bottlenecks where their situation could have been compromised, and they paid the price for it. After the attack occurred, they began blaming the Army for screwing things up to the media, something along the lines of "typical Army screwup, they can never get anything done right; this area was supposed to be secured.". .
I'm hoping there'll be a similar book that chronicles the trials and tribulations of the 3rd MI on their way up country.
