Some of the Marines here mention how diverse and adaptable the Marines are. I am sure If I was a Marine i would too. But I am curious what you guys feel the Army does better in terms of certain missions and how you see their role. Is their little respect for the job they are doing in A-Stan and Iraq or do you think they are doing a good job.

Speaking as a fomre Marine I can say that the Army is better at some missions than the Marines and the Corps is better than the Army for others. 

 

 Most of this has to do with organizationand and equipment . The Corps can do Mech/Armor thing but not as wll as the Army.  The Corps can only compensate so much for its lack of Armor with its organoc airpower. For al the talk about combined Arms, dismounted Infantry remains the primaryy combat arm of the Corps.

 

 The suggstion that the Corps should concetrate on the Afghanistan and Army  Iraq makes  sense when you consider the organization, equipment and doctrine of each service.

No there is no disrespect of the Army.  I have worked w/ many Army Units.  I loved the SF guys.  But if your referring to what I wrote, I wrote it b/c was true, it depicts how intense shit was in Al Anbar at the time.

 

For those that dont know the Marines were requested by the Army to return to Iraq to specifically take down Al Anbar in Nov 03 after the Marines had permanently left Iraq in Sept 03.  Going May 03-Sep w/out 1 Marine Combat death when the Army was losing 40-50/mth.  Marines were doing SASO patrols in S. Iraq w/no body armor.

 

Marines were sent to Al Anbar 800mi from the Sea, during its most violent time, by request. 

 

Am I talking bad about the Army for saying this?  No, it was the facts on the ground. 

 

It shows another dimension of how the MC operates and shows the trust the Army Commanders have for the fact that Marines Get results, and we did.

PPL on this site act like I should be ashamed to say that shit. 

 

The war in I raq was going to shit until Petraeus used the tactics the Marines developed in Al Anbar.  Disbursing into smaller units that actually live eat and sleep in the local communities, not live &patrol fr/ large bases.  Build up the local security by living in their outposts and fight side by side w/ them until they get it.  Form the local males into "Neighborhoodwatch-type units" and give them a sense of pride.

 

These weren't things the Americans came up w/ it was the Marine Corps.

 

But if I draw the distinction to ppl who think the Army and Marine Corps are the same, then I'm the bad guy.

Where does that leave the Light Infantry of th US army (and Airborne)? Those seem to be the most effective right now in and around Baghdad. It is mostly 10th mountain, 82nd airborne, and 173rd airborne brigade in A-stan at the moment.

 

Perfect example.  Theyre effective right now around Baghdad b/c theyre using tactics developed by Marines in Al Anbar.

 

Its not to take away fr/ those units but it was the tactical change that has brought their recent success.

 

A tactical change Marine commanders have begged the Army to make for 3yrs .

Another thing you need to understand is we are organized to accomplish completely different missions.  The Army, as a whole, is designed to fight gound Wars.  The MC, as a whole, is an Expeditionary Strike Force; the only service directly under the authority of the US President.

 

They are organized to do large scale, long term high intensity war, better than we are.  We do short term high intensity and long term low intensity better then them.

 

But w/ that said the other services & Armed Forces are trying to move into areas that were unique  innovations of the USMC, like our Combined Arms ability or our Expeditionary capabilties.

Intersting source for the Army request?

Why ambush?  Marine Units had Permanently left Iraq in Sep '03.  Turning over authority to the Multi-National Force.

 

By the end of Oct '03 US deaths jumped fr/ a avg of about 50/mth to 87 in Oct.  The Marines were requested to return in Nov '03, the majority of their gear was still at sea.

 

They weren't requested to give relief in an area that more complimented Marine capabilities, they were requested to take on the most violitile province in Iraq 800mi fr/ the Sea.  The farthest an Army command had ever assigned a Marine Combat command.

The difference derived from many directions, but I'll address what I think are the two principle generalities.

During the Cold War the US Army was focused on winning the conventional battle.  This created a majority of officers who seldom thought about fighting a insurrgency, or what some call "Near War Operations".  This is not to say the US Army discarded all thought for operations other than mechanized battles.  The Special Forces group (Green Berts) remained, the Rangers were revived as a combat unit, Delta Force was formed, experimental light units came & went.  But, most officers trained for the big battle.  More important the civilians & Army officers inside the Washinton DC Beltway seldom thought about the US fighting another insurrgency.

This lack of attention was compounded post Cold War by the lack of thought over military policy during the Clinton administration.  The policy cahnges revolved around the 'Peace Dividend' benefits.  Efforts to rethink US strtigic policy or Army doctrine were made & went nowhere.  Principly due to a lack of vision at the very top.  President Clinto & his staff had zilch military experince and did not even know what questions to ask the generals, let alone how to organize a effective & comprehensive review of stratigic policy.  This despite the involvement in peacekeeping in Somalia, Kosovo, and near involvment in several other places.  These missions required military force as one component of sucessfull intervention.  But no one at the top had a coherent idea of what sort of military force, and they had no clear idea of what the other components might be. 

The Bush Presidency brought to the Department of the Army the policy guidance relating to the statement "We dont do nation building".  The implication and the subsequent guidance from the Secretary of defence sent the US Armys thinkers in directions other than concerning "Low Intensity Operations". 

The US Marines in the 1970s and 1980s underwent a long internal debate on the nature of warfare and how wars/battles are actually won.  In overly simplitic terms the doctrine that emerged in the late 1980s was of outthinking the enemy in all aspects, vs only applying firepower and mechanized manuver to perfection.   Several personalities had much to do with this including a USAF Brigadier Gen who was already dead, and a couple Secretarys of the Navy.  

Then the Cold War ended.  The ferment in the USMC of the previous two decades of debate frothed over instatly with a new debate about the possible new USMC missions.  Most of the questions had already been addressed indirectly earlier over the nuances of tactics & doctrine, and the hisitorical role of the USMC.  That is the actuall role & not the common Hollywood or History Channel version.  In the mid 1990s Marine Commadant Gen Krulak ordered published a entirely new basis for doctrine.  In simplistic terms the USMC had to be able to respond nearly instantly to all missions ranging from good will visits in friendly ports, to show of flag presence in politically tense locations, to diaster relief, to simple riot control, to low level insurrgency - like in Nothern Ireland, to full blown civil wars, to ultra violent conventional wars.  The key to the new doctrine was that it recognized response to each situation could not be driven by centralized control techniques.  Even with the best & fastest communications a centralized politcal or military leader & his staff can never act fast enough to keep up with events in every squad.  So every squad leader had to be trained to make split second decsions on the basis of National Policy.  This meant the leaders at all levells, down to E4 had to be trained to do so, and more important the leaders had to be trained to make clear to the lowest corporal just what the policy is.  Krulak identifed this concept with the term "Stratigic Corporal".

Closely related to this was the identification of insurrgencys and civil disorder as the most likey venues for intervention by the USMC.  So, the old books on the subjects were reprinted, and new items written.  Consequently the Marines went into Iraq with a counter insurrgency doctrine in their heads.  It was neither perfect nor pretty but it was vastly better than nothing. 

I've glossed over some thirty years of development & debate or discussion which really require a book size treatment for proper understanding.   My preception of this is colored by my own military service in the midst of these events.  On my shelves here are several dozen articals in the marine Corps Gazette & Naval Institute Proceedings that relate directly to some aspect of these doctrinal developments and debates.

Claymore       10/30/2007 7:24:30 PM

Interesting. What do you think was the reason that lead to this error in tactics? The US Army just patrolled places to infrequently and let insurgents build up versus keeping a constant eye on them?

All good points to which I would add that General Gray, as Commandant,  probably was the moving force in getting it all started.  Prior to his becoming commandant the Corps was well on its way to becoming a smaller version of the Army. In my opinion that man saved the Corps

 

 

  One of the best indicators you have of the Army's conventinal mindset is not just tactics but little things like the shaving regualtions imposed on the Special Ops guys in Afghanistan.

 

  I think one other thing that might have been driving the Army's choice of tactics is risk aversion.  A fear that if they leave the  Corporal or Sergeant out their withut adequate supervison they will screw up and a commader will have a career ending incident on his hands.