I'm biased but,
The difference is leadership.
Someone posted they felt sorry for Marines because of their leadership.
Don't
Force Recon doesn't get the Glory as other SOF because Marine Leadership refused to give up operational control to some ***munch pentagon desk jockey out to design a heroic mission. Compare Seal/Recon missions and casualty rates.

Army leadership left Rangers hanging in Somalia with no armor when the Marines left and took their armor with them. I would have thought they learned their lesson from that but... Iraq war Rangers in the north with no armor. Thankfully they did not have serious resistance.

Marines have their own fixed wing air support. Army does not. Army depends on Airforce and we all know what kind of duchebags Airforce pilots are. No offense to AF pilots.

Marines live by Combined Arms and Fire and Maneuver.
They hit the enemy with as many different weapons as possible from as many different angles as possible with the ferocity of "devil dogs" until they kill everyone who needs killing.

Army leadership always seems to revert to taking "objectives" on a map. Fallujah was prime example. Read "House to House" the author acknowledges overextending to take the center objective. They get surrounded and cut of, he and others heroically save themselves from annilhation. He seems to have a good tactical understanding of urban combat yet fails to ackowledge the strategic blunders that put them there. He even chides the Marines for not moving quick enough and methodically working their way into the city.

Both Army and Marines faced with Fallujah fortress, entire buildings wired to explode, streets were designed kill zones.

Army answer: Maintain speed to objective, don't tell troops buildings are wired so troops will continue to enter and search buildings as normal. (Willingness to throw lives away)

Marine answer: Use tanks to blow holes in buildings to set off explosives and create new avenues of advance to avoid street kill zones. (Smart Leaders finding a way to complete their mission with the lowest possible casualties)

I knew good Army guys, it's not about skill or conditioning on a wide scale, it's their leadership. Also, I wish they would give Marines all the good toys the Army has. Marines would be even more devastating with better equipment.

reply to post by hardeeboy[/url]

No need to go nuclear, my boy.

America is a huge country. Only a huge country like China could 'invade' America.

Would they? No, of course not. They would be more likely to use CBRN weapons or agents to achieve their aims. Covertly or by using so called black operatives to achieve their aims.

Could they invade the continental United States? No. Nor could any other country in the world.

So I am afraid Hardeeboy, that your question is mute.

Originally posted by Jinja
What I would give to pilot an Apache....A leg.

Also, which unit of the armed forces is the most technologically equipped? I see all these new weapons on documentaries yet I never hear of them in the Iraq conflict.

The branch of the armed forces which is most technologically equipped doesn't exist. Nor would anyone tell you if it did.

As a U.S. Army soldier I'd have to say that the Army and the Marines both have their advatages and disadvatages. In the war in Iraq I feel that the Marines are doing a better job mostly because of their older and not so technological equipment with is better to fight an insurgentecy. They Army has alot better equipment than the Marines that is best to fight a conventional army. I think if we declared war on a conventional army it'll be the oppisite of what is happening today, the Army would come out on top while the Marines would struggle to adapt.

After extensive research I have come to a great conclusion. The Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and yes the Coast Guard all have there own jobs to do. Because the Marines and Army overlap jobs they get compared sometimes. I think this is fair. As long as we stick to the jobs they overlap in.
For instance, up until recently the Marines had no designated "Special Operations" forces. This is because ALL Marines are taught they are the best. To single out one group of Marines defeated that idea. However, because the top brass was so stubborn about this, the Marines Force Recon units basically sat out the Iraq invasion. Other branches Special Ops people were given more tasks and missions.

Ok enough history. Bottom line, Marine Recon Units are closest to Army Rangers. Matter of fact, Recon goes through Ranger school. They go through "jump" school, Rangers go through "Airborne". What seperates the units, as mentioned in other posts, is the leadership. There is no way to tell unit by unit who has the best leadership.

Most Ranger units are led by West Point Grads. Marines have no formal War College. So every Marine officer went to Marine Officer School. Not like West Point or the Naval Academy. I would say Marines are probably given more practical knowledge.

Last, I think Marines have better Sniper units. It is common thinking that the Marine Scout Sniper course is the best in the world or top 3. (Brits and Canadians have excellent sniper schools as well)

I think the Marines have the upper hand.

oh my that some research ..wow

I served in the US Army for 4 years as an infantryman. It was not a cake walk and I thought I was the best in the world. I thought I was a real bad mo fo lets say. I made rank of E-5 and was all I could be. Then I got a burr up my rear and decided to enlist in the USMC. To enlist in the Marines I lost all rank down to an E-2. Yes thats right I was now a PFC again. ParrisIsland was ten times harder than The big Ben ever dreamed of. It is night and day. I could not believe what I had gotten myself into. The weapons training is much better in the Marines, they pt harder, drill harder, and are just better trained period. I survived my 4 years in the Marines and out of the two I can clearly tell you as for killing skills. The Marines breed the best ever. As for fielding the best weapons the Army is far better at spending money.
It is night and day. I lived it. I can tell you right now that a lot of the guys that were army first didnt even make it in USMC recruit depot training. We had 4 army, two navy, one airforce. Out of them all me and the navy guy made it. The rest dropped out. Its like the seals, the Marines dont keep everyone that signs up. People drop out of bootcamp as the best rises to the top. We started with 88 suckers on deck, and graduated 45. The army graduated everyone that was medically able to pass. The army is watered down as far as the general mean mentality. The D.I.'s in the Marines would strip search you in the middle of the field infront of the entire world. They would play mind games with you all day and night. Dress you by the numbers, humiliate you, strip you of all emotion and fear. Then they build you up and. make you just like them. You actually become almost heartless, fearless, your mind is like a steal trap. You think more on mission accomplishment rather than troop welfare. It is night and day. I have done both. The marines use the m-4 and m-16 in ways that make the Army seem like school kids with air guns. The army gos 350 meters on a point target, the marined to 550 meters on the same target. I can say the boxing in the Marines should be adopted by the Army. It teaches every marine to take a hit and keep going. Boxing is optional in the Army it is mandated in the Corps. Plus the Corps is more deeply rooted in teaching its history. I can tell you all bout marine history, but the army is more a factory for making soldiers. That is why the army enlistments starts at two years. The Marines require 4, because they put more money in your training and want a return on that investment.
Why do you think the Marines were used against the most vicious of our foes in every major war. The army could not hold anvar, said it was impossible. The marines cleared it out in 2 months, the army surrendered the philipeans the marines took it back. The army said it would take 200,000 men 200 years to take Iwo Jima the marined took it in 3 days. When the army was in full retreat in Korea, Macarther knew exactly to send in against the Chinese. And it worked.
It is all about what your mission is. You want it cleared and killed, the marine infantry is the best for the job. You want is won in a conventional military way by over whelming force size. Use the army. It is well known that the army has a much better intel gathering system. It has a better source of weapons systems, and in over all spend more money on gear than the Marines. The army officers are of high quality and the army has a better medical corps, sense the marines have no medical field at all.(they use the navy for that). I lived it, I know it, I have the t-shirt and everything lol

this thread is from march 2004!!

glad i found it in the "recent posts"....

to the half dozen marines who have posted above me,
great work guys, both in the field and in sharing some great thoughts and experiences with us here on ATS.

cheers!

Ok, I have to throw my 2 cents in on this one.

As a Marine currently deployed to Iraq I just want to clarify a few things.

When talking about who is better you have to look at the overall picture. Yes Marines are better when it comes to urban warfare and overall just taking things over. This only comes because from day 1 of bootcamp we are taught discipline, leadership, and obedience to orders. We follow our rank structure as if its a golden rule, we are told to do something, we do it no questions asked. If we stop to ask questions people will die. That is the main reason that the Marines are so proficient in what we do. I have heard it said time and again that an Army Ranger is no better then a Marine basic infantryman. Now I can not substantiate this because I have not seen what Rangers do, but I like to believe it is true.

The army is trained in a totally different manner than Marines. Their bootcamp is more lax, their overall obedience to rank structure is, to me, downright non-existent. I personally do not like the army. I have to explain this. We, as Marines, have a set standard that we live by, and the army doesnt have the same standards as us. Uniform appearance, physical appearance, attitude towards superiours. The army doesnt hold their soldiers to the same standards that we Marines hold our Marines to.

I will say that the army is good at what they are trained for, whatever that may be, because I really do not know what they are trained to do. From what I have seen they come in after we have taken an area and set up camp to hold the area so we can move onto taking another area. The only problem is, they tend to not be able to hold the area and we have to come take it back, its happened many times in Iraq already.

If there were an all out battle between the Army and Marine Corp, its hard to say who would win. The Marine Corp only has roughly 200,000 Marines. We are all highly trained with rifles and can probably outshoot almost any soldier, however, the Army would come with a massive numbers advantage. All in all, it would come down to where the battle was to be fought out at, if it was urban like here in Iraq, Marines would win because that is what we are good at, Urban warfare. If it was just a vast plain, the army just because of the sheer number difference.

In conclusion, I have to add this. The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corp, National Guard, and Coast Guard in the end all work together to achieve one goal. To make sure that the man to the left and right of them comes back safely from whatever mission they may be on. When we are on the battlefield we do not care what branch you are from, we are all brothers and as such we dedicate ourselves more to making sure those around us come back then we do to making sure we come back. In times of peace however, we like to joke about things like this thread and just have fun altogether. As I said, we are all brothers, every branch, and as such we are all fighting towards one common goal, to keep the United States and her citizens safe and continue our countries great freedoms.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
I hate to make it a U.S. vs. U.S. scenario, but there have always been glaring differences between the U.S. Army's method of warfare as opposed to the U.S. Marine Corps.

For one thing, the Marines always seem to relish CQB situations, while the Army has always faltered in the situation, as we are now seeing in Iraq. Marines also seem to accomplish their missions with better efficiency despite the fact they are primitive and underequipped compared to the U.S. Army.

Another interesting factor. Marine Expeditionary Units are Special Operations-Capable. Does anyone believe they could be superior to U.S. Army Rangers, who execute very similar special operations as the Marines?

Can you cite some examples of Army Infantry units faltering? As for MEU-SOC vs. Rangers- they have different missions, just like SF/SEALs have different missions, just like AFSOC has different mission.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo

Originally posted by American Mad Man
the thing is that marines are like shock troopers where as the army is more about power through numbers. I have heard from some that the maines training is much more intense then that of your army GI.

as for the MEU vs Ranger thing - as always, it comes down to the individual units and squads - you cannot make wholesale sweeping generalizations. There are undoubtedly some from either side that would be superior then some from the other side, and some that would be better at individual tasks.

Marines do recieve more intense - and better - training. They are strict when it comes to shooting a rifle. They teach martial arts and train Marines to be deadly close-combat warriors. And their training lasts 12 weeks, the longest.

Rangers vs. MEU, let's say that there was a military airfield to be secured. What would fare better, a single Ranger Company or Marine Rifle Company?

The point I'm trying to make is that Marines seem to be better trained for smaller operations, and are also seem to be more proficient in operations in structures, urban areas, just any place built-up. They seem to be better "street-soldiers." Is this a fair assessment?

If you're going to compare Marine Boot Camp to Army Basic Traning to compare MEU-SOC and Rangers, you're assumptions are already heavily flawed. You need to look at what it takes to get into those units, and then once in, what kind of trainging they do.

Originally posted by bios
Marines vs regular army? the Marines would kick the army's azz.
Marines vs Special Forces or Rangers?
That would depend on the scenario in which they find themselves.

Which Marine Unit vs. Which Army Unit? I guarantee you, Army combat arms units train just as hard as the Marines. The difference is that they don't have to worry about amphibious assaults. This isn't to take anything away from the Marines, but you can't make blanket statements. The question you should ask is how well they do the missions that are asked of them.

Apples & Oranges for sure. All Ranger Battalions are SOC property. Not true with Marines. Rangers are trained in a way that makes the lowest ranking private ready to take the CO's place if the CO takes the last nap. The Ranger Creed dictates that the mission will be completed

"Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor. "

Marines are good at what they do. So are Army Rangers.

If I spelled anything wrong, I was in the Marines.... otherwise Sua Sponte