Professional Boarding Parties

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Slade RE:Professional Boarding Parties 11/5/2003 7:05:03 AM

The Marines don't want the job, they'd rather work on land/amphib warfare. Most Marines were taken off non-amphib Navy ships in the 90's as far as a regular security detail is concirned. I seem to remember an article 6mo to a year ago in Proceedings on it.

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k3n-54n RE:Professional Boarding Parties 11/5/2003 11:40:58 AM

There is another group better suited than either the Marines or the seals, and that is the Coast Guard, but they are not Navy. I say the real problem is that we are using the Navy in places where the Coast Guard would be much better, like boarding and inspecting, but the Coast Guard doesn't have the money or size it would need for the job.

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Sam RE:Professional Boarding Parties 11/5/2003 4:37:50 PM

K3N is right. The Coasties have it going on. A few years ago (mid 90s) Marines were assigned to Coast Guard vessels to aid boarding parties. This during the Hatian refugee time. Coast Guard was really swamped. The only Marines on non amphib ships were guards for nuclear weapons. If the ship didn't have nuc's there were no Marines. The Navy is looking for trained boarders on their smaller ships that often are tasked with stopping vessels. Not enough Marines, Seals or Coasties to put on every surface ship in the Navy. I'm sure this will be a additional MOS, or skill designator(Like surface warfare badge). Navy isn't going to have sailors on a ship whos only job is boarding party. The 13th MEU is conductiong boarding operations in the Persian Gulf as we speak.

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raymond RE:Professional Boarding Parties 11/5/2003 5:47:59 PM

I have a great deal of respect for the Coast Guard, but we must recognize the differance between law enforcement and interdiction in wartime. To involve the CG in the latter would make them far too rough for domestic LE duties. I spent two years in a carrier MarDet, all of which have been disbanded since the nukes were removed. What they don't mention is that at the time, almost every combatant ship in the navy had nukes aboard (such as rocket-fired depth charges), making the point moot to begin with. I concluded that were there because the Admirals liked having us around. That probably was not justified during the cold war. But this is a new era, much closer to the pre-WWI era than anything recent. Boarding, counter-boarding, and sabotage are becoming the rule rather than the exception, while large-scale conflicts are retreating to a relative rarity. The Defence Unification Act specifies that the corps provide security for ships and stations of the navy, to which this catagory seems to fit. I worries me that the corps is foresaking the very reason for it's existence, to pursue the chimera of of amphibious warfare. Given that current amphibious doctrine looks a lot like airmobile operations (STOM) I wonder at the wisdom of centering the force on something the army can throw a lot more money at. Anyone can fly helos off a phib, and "amphibious assault" is a relatively recent invention, but navies have relied on marines for close-in work as long as they have existed. This seems like organizational suicide to me. The gentlemen at Quantico need to remember that the Navy can exist without a Marine Corps, but the Corps cannot exist without the navy.

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Shaka of Carthage RE:Professional Boarding Parties 11/5/2003 7:40:43 PM

I kinda like the idea. In some ways, its a indirect method of expanding the number of potential SEAL recruits.

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Shaka of Carthage RE:Professional Boarding Parties 11/5/2003 7:43:07 PM

Matter of fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. Especially since it could allow a small number of Marines to be placed aboard each surface warship to act as a cadre of NCOs. Even on the smaller ships, adding one or two Marines as the core of that boarding party wouldn't hurt.

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raymond RE:Professional Boarding Parties 11/5/2003 10:12:40 PM

1.) Why would the navy be looking for more SEAL recruits? They lose control of them to SOCOM as soon as they get to a team. 2.) They'll pay the same amount either way, so why duplicate what exists? The navy tried this at the turn of the century, and was shot down by congress because it was needless duplication.

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