U.S. Army vs. U.S. Marine Corps

Let's stop before this turns into a damn "Royal Marines vs. American Marines" type of thing. American Marines, especially those of Marine Force Recon, are extremely tough, and that training is very grueling. So are Royal Marines. And Royal Marines and American Marines consider each other brothers-in-arms as well because they have worked together a lot and respect each other.

It is only on forums where people argue over which is better, which is stupid to me. Troops are troops, people are people. And most are trained differently with different purposes. Also, remember, pretty much all countries out there have tough-ass special forces of some type. Some Marines who know guys in the French Foreign Legion say those are some of the toughest SOBs you'll ever come across. The Foreign Legion is comprised of foreigners, not French, and they go into the super hot spots before the French army since they are expendable moreso (they were created as a division to place foreigners in the French army). But they are trained by the French.

Also, the Netherlands infantry are some real hard-asses too from what I hear. And then the Germans are pretty good as well. And let's not forget the Russians, who seem to define the word "hard-ass;" other countries seem to make their troops hard, but it seems that Russians are raised hard. Their Spetsnaz troops are legendary. I was reading in a book recently about how one former Spetnaz troop is now a U.S. Marine over in Iraq right now (talk about living your life as a soldier).

As for the "every Marine a rifleman" thing, that is because the Marines are the smallest force of the U.S. Armed Forces, so they can afford to give all their troops that extra rifle training. The Army can't do that because a) most people are lazy-asses who don't wanna go through the extra training and thus you'd lose too many troops, and b) the Army has a lot more soldiers than the Marine Corps, so it would cost a lot more money-wise.

The advantage of the Corps though, is that they thus don't fall suit to political-correctness as much as the Army. Like all the branches of the U.S. forces integrate basic training for men and women; the Marines don't; they train the men and women separate.

By the way, if you want to be a fighter pilot but want infantry training, go Marine Corps; all Marines get infantry training and the physical requirements are tougher than for the Air Force or Navy pilots.

Yes, it is also a fact that the British Marine Corps is way smaller than the U.S. one, so they can afford to do that. Only a few individuals are willing to go through all that kind of training. If the British Marine Corps was the size of the United States Marine Corps, they too would have to create like a "Royal Marine Force Recon" or something. Remember, the American Marines consist of lawyers, pilots, supply officer, mechanics, etc.....the whole U.S. Marine Corps is an entire self-contained military in its own right, with its own little air force, army, and navy. That is why it is so independent.

The smaller your soldier-number, the stricter you can make the requirements. Like to be a fighter pilot in most European countries, you need straight 20/20 vision at least, super good grades, etc....in the U.S., the standards are less strict because we have a lot more planes and a shortage of pilots right now.

Another example is how no other service except the Marines train all their troops to be rifleman. Like I said, because all the other services are also a lot larger in terms of how many people they have.

Army kicks the Marine Corps' AZZ everytime!

j/k

Different missions. Different specializations. Different budgets. As a vet of the Army Airborne, I havta say, I have alotta respect for the jarheads. They put up with endless crap on shoestring budgets.

The RM is a self contained military, they have thier logistic core and means of transportation. Also No i dont think they would because the British military would never be that large or would ever try to be that. The RM is there to defend the RN and is a mobile force, not a stationary force. They spend less than 6 months in one place, period.
Also we wouldnt need to have a marine force reacon version here cause we already do! Its called the SBS, we would have mabye less fit marines but i believe it would be near enough the same.

The smaller the number the less fitness you will make it to encourage other people to join, when the numbers go up so does the requirements.


Still it would be more effective to have every soldier or airman a rifleman because instead of haveing to send a team into save them they can save them selves.

Also about your other post we dont want to see a thread like that , frankly we know the USMC is a damm good force and has a great reputation. The RMC is fitter and more highly trained because they dont do the same job as the USMC and is smaller so more highly trained, if our country became the 51st state( no chance in hell of happening! not while i am still here)you'd definatly see a third comando section of the USMC because they respect one another.

The army is better than the marines at long term missions because marines are taught to go in , kill the bad guy, go home or hold the area for a short while. The army is there to hold onto the position and not let it fall.

For an overall military, yes, when the numbers are up, you give tougher requirments for physical fitness to JOIN. I am talking about how they train you. If they need more troops, they lower the standards to let you in.

But if the force has lots of troops, in terms of training, they will give all the troops basic training essentially because there's so many. But for a smaller force, they will give the troops extra training since they can afford to.

Marine Expiditionary Units are invasion forces, they are the big units of marines you see deploying from landing craft onto beaches. Technially they are NOT Special Forces, they are just a unit type( like an army platoon). Marines do have Special Forces, that are known as Marine Force Reconnassance. I know the difference because I have a cousin in the Marines.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

Marine units that achieve the SOC (Special Operations Capable) are considered SF in that they fall under the command of SOCOM, or JSOC.

In addition to the FR units, the Marines also have the MSPF. There is plenty of info on them around the web.

We know who wins the argument. lol

Memories:

Rangers taking a break, leaning back aganst trees,
Recon Marines digging foxholes...

We got breaks, they didn't

I enlisted in Army to avoid draft into Marines.
During Airborne training RecomMarines came to train with us.
Told me "This is tougher than anything we ever experienced in Marine training"

me: I coulda had that pretty uniform and easier training?

In the field
Happy to have a 3rd Marine 1st Recon by my side when the bullets were flying.
Knowing they would die with me or beside me, but not abandon me.

Army regulars would lay in the grass and spray bullets without aiming.
Marines made every round count if possible.
Army Rangers/Airborne same as Marine Recon from a Nam vet perspective.

From people I knew personally:
Mayaguez/Cambodia
Marines abandoned fellow Marines to die on the ground as they watched Marine copters fly off without them.
Heard it from a Marine who was there, on the copter...
Watching fellow Marines fight and die alone...left behind.

Well we all know that the marines are the presidents own private military that would make the marines better just under funded after the navy pays for all there toys 1833 and damn proud of it.SEMPER FI

Semper Fi,I am a former Marine also and I can vouch that every Marine is a rifleman first,from a private to a general.When I was in P.I. boot camp,a couple of my fellow recruits weren't going to pass the rifle range so we all caught HELL.At 4 a.m. on the morning of qualifing,the D.I.'s got our whole platoon (80 men) out of the racks and marched us into the head they had poured gallons of amonia in, and made us do bends and thrusts for close to an hour.No chow that morning either.They told us "Ladies,if you don't ALL qualify,this is just a little taste of how it's going to be."Needless to say we all qualified with 75% rifle experts,and 25% sharpshooters.

I would have to say that your trying to compare apples to oranges.
They both have their specialty's
The Marine have the task of being the first strike.
When it really drops in the pot then you want the Army
for the really big slug fest.

WO-2 Wing-Nut
Formerly D Trp 4/7 Cav
US Army

AK 47Text Pink

Marines are good at what they do, the intitial training is longer and no matter your job you get trained in marine infrantry rifleman tactics. army boot camp is more specialized for your job. If your a clerk you dont get alot of training if your a infrentry man or a recon scout you get alot more training.

So compare normal intrentry to marine infrinty the marine edges them out.

if you take a light and quick army infrentry against marine inrintry its more equal.

take scouts against the marine recon the army scouts are a bit better

take airborne recon guys and put them against the recon mariens army guys edge them out in a few area's

now the marine recon socom guys are good compared to rangers though no way as good but rangers are a bit better.

if the army infranty guy does not get all the training or ojt the marines get but if the infrantry guy goes airborne then thats a huge difference.

Rangers and the 82nd airborne guys deploy the most rapid, of all the forces.
if the marines are off shore on a ship then sure they can be there if they are prepositioned, we went and deployed into panama in 14 hours the ranger companys were there in 11-12 hours. rangers and 82nd div ready brigade can go anywhere in the world in 18 hours no one deployes that fast or can.

marines are not the first in thats bull#.


budget and toys are huge and i was in the 82nd airborne div we had everything and had lots of money to train.

marines like to march around and iron there cloths and do inspections as part of their disipline, we had not time for that we were always shooting and training which takes huge money.

the marines would come to ft bragg from camp legune. they would train like 3 days with us and the rest of the time was drills, marching, barracks maint inspections and ceremony stuff.

we trained for 6 days out of the 10 when we worked together. also they only had like 50 rounds a peice to fire at the range and cant afford to go all the time. we had lots of ammo and lived at the firing range at times.


we trained about 4 times as much as they could afford to.

its a question of budgets, thats why marines do all the disipline and inspection training they dont have the money we did to train.

marines are great though. army airborne recon and the heavy armored cavalry guys are good too.

the seals, sf, and delta have some of the same jobs and deploy in much smaller teams cant compare them at all.

I'm out of date and can only speak of the past. Nam/Cambodia

Recon Marines joined us for Airborne training.
I told them I'd feared the harsh Marine basic.
They told me our Airborne training was harder than anything they had yet experienced.
To me it was just like more basic/AIT.

I was also in the field with Recon Marines.

When a halt ...
Marines began digging, we Rangers took cover and rested.
End of break, they put away trenching tools and we all went back to slogging through mud.
When the bullets begin flying, there is nobody I'd rather have beside me than a Recon Marine.
been there done: that 3rd Marine 1st Recon saved my arse a couple times.