US Marines Stop Terrorist On Paris Bound Train

[blackeagle603]

Counterpoint, which has I believe been sufficiently established by now, is that it is not specifically a Marine function.

Now you're just being contentious.

[blackeagle603]

Not swinging across the rigging to seize men-of-war, as earlier intimate

We could stand be sending a few to North Korea to board and burn down the Pueblo a la Decatur.

Since we're getting all hystorical, the Army hasn't made a horse charge a few decades so let's disband the cavalry.

[Aesop]

Not swinging across the rigging to seize men-of-war, as earlier intimate

We could stand be sending a few to North Korea to board and burn down the Pueblo a la Decatur.

Since we're getting all hystorical, the Army hasn't made a horse charge a few decades so let's disband the cavalry.

Now you're making Jericho's arguments on his behalf.

[toad]

During WW II after the Normandy breakout, Patton was heard to say he wished he had some horses since he was running low on fuel.. The horse could forage during the good weather. As a side note Patton in the between war years had the existing US Calvary train as dragoons. That is ride up as close as they could get then advance on foot.
During the early Afghanistan action the Spec.Forces did a fair amount of horse and mule riding.
During WW II in the Burma theater I believe they blind folded some donkeys and mules and then air dropped them.
:jacked:
Next gas masks for camels: Camel filters.

[Netpackrat]

During WW II in the Burma theater I believe they blind folded some donkeys and mules and then air dropped them.

Gah. Wonder what their loss rate was like?

[Jericho941]

That was a nice troll, but I'll still bite.

1) How did that "mostly Army amphibious capability" pan out at Inchon in 1950?

You mean where the Army took their beach easily against forces that were still resisting, and the Marines encountered forces that had already surrendered after sustained air strikes and naval bombardment?

1a) Compare and contrast: How many US tanks got ashore at D-Day in an entirely Army amphibious show, versus how many got ashore at any/every Pacific soiree from 1942-1945?

Any?

Normandy
Utah: 27/28
Omaha (West): 40/48
Omaha (East): 18/48
Operation Dragoon: 34/36

Tarawa
Red One: 2/6
Red Two: 3/6
Red Three: 8/8

So? Shall we compare and contrast the gains from the New Guinea campaign to Iwo Jima?

2) How many times and ways did people try backroom and up-front attempts to axe the entire Marine Corps, culminating in the (need for, and actual) Key West agreements of 1947, permanently delineating service roles and missions?

You know, if you're trying to argue that Marine brass isn't worried about getting the axe, you might not want to establish historical precedent that'd give them good reason.

In the early 1980s they were absolutely convinced their backs were against the wall on the matter, especially after the failure of Operation Eagle Claw cast serious doubt on the feasibility of long-range helicopter operations, while antiship missile tech was pushing the boundaries out farther than helicopter range. They needed something that could do the same job farther and faster, or a miracle. Cue the V-22 Osprey.

The only reason the V-22 has survived development hell as long as it has to become a useful aircraft fifteen years late is because the Marines bet the farm on it and thus were determined to fight for it to the bitter end. Every other branch that pitched in started to cut their orders when it showed every sign of a boondoggle. Dick Cheney repeatedly tried to kill it. But the Marines didn't budge, because as leadership saw it: No Osprey, soon no Marine Corps. The thing survived a Congressional hearing where they had recorded audio of the squadron maintenance officer telling the maintainers lie to make sure the program stayed alive, for crying out loud.

For an outfit proud of how it never has enough of everything, especially money, that's an awful lot of funds and political clout spent on something like that.

3) The DoD is never going there since, because the Marines have traditionally provided 20-25% of the nation's teeth for less than 10% of the defense budget, going back to most any time this side of FDR.

(Citation Needed)

4) Call me anytime the Army is willing to put up with 6 months' deployment on a gator freighter as an institutional mission, forever. Better yet, take a picture, it'll last longer.

If a marine can fly, a soldier can ride a boat.

5) The last time the Marines' fundamental institutional mission included "ship boarding" was, IIRC, somewhere back when propulsion was measured in square yards of sail. You might want to get current on your professional reading if this is news.

Hey, I only said "at least as far back as the 1940s." If you really want to argue "since 1850," go right ahead.

Since I see a lot of flagrant point-missing on this: As time went on and boarding enemy ships as a primary means of neutralizing them became obsolete, the role shrank to inspections and seizures. It is correct that this job is primarily done by Coast Guard (and Navy) personnel. That's the evolutionary dead-end of boarding actions. The other branches have seen similar concepts hit the wall and diminish or completely disappear, like battleships. Other concepts, like a fast flanking force and destruction of enemy air assets, never truly go out of style. The Marines, meanwhile, evolved by focusing on the other part of their job, ship-to-shore ops... and by adopting MAGTF, i.e. becoming a Mini-Me to the other branches, primarily the Army.

6) As for Army competence at ship to shore operations vs. the Marines, in leave you with this quote from long after "the 1940s":

"We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the hell is going on?" [(Army) Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; during the assault on Grenada, 1983

Uh-huh.

Nearly four years later, Vessey neither recalled that remark nor asking MG Trobaugh to employ Rangers in a daytime assault role. In a letter to the JHO in 1996, GEN Vessey stated that “My memory of the events, a check of my phone log for that day, and my generally fairly scrupulous insistence that the existing chain of command be used, lead me to say that the assertion that I called Trobaugh is just, flat wrong, despite the Baltimore Sun article.”

[toad]

During WW II in the Burma theater I believe they blind folded some donkeys and mules and then air dropped them.

Gah. Wonder what their loss rate was like?

No loss if they ate the ones that didn't make it.

I wonder what the sound was like if a donkey lost its blind fold as it went out the door?

[Netpackrat]

I wonder what the sound was like if a donkey lost its blind fold as it went out the door?

Brief.

[toad]

I vaguely recall the US Marines operating along the coast of Texas putting horses aboard a ship to put patrols into inland during the Mexican American War.
Later there were the "Horse Marines" in China.
http://www.usmcpresentarms.com/adsusmc_ ... rines.html

Next the "drone" Marine......(insert joke here).

[Aesop]

That was a nice troll, but I'll still bite.

1) How did that "mostly Army amphibious capability" pan out at Inchon in 1950?

You mean where the Army took their beach easily against forces that were still resisting, and the Marines encountered forces that had already surrendered after sustained air strikes and naval bombardment?

You've jumped the shark and/or lost your mind.
The initial amphibious assault at Inchon was an entirely Marine Corps affair.
The Army's 7th Division didn't take any beaches, and didn't land in the harbor until the second day, after the Marine landings at Green, Red, and Blue Beaches had secured the entire harbor complex.
While the entire Army contingent was playing poker on ships out at sea.
As Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up."
Evidently that small factoid escaped your clever recitation of events.

Normandy
Utah: 27/28
Omaha (West): 40/48
Omaha (East): 18/48
Operation Dragoon: 34/36

Tarawa
Red One: 2/6
Red Two: 3/6
Red Three: 8/8

So? Shall we compare and contrast the gains from the New Guinea campaign to Iwo Jima?

No. Let's just tell the class how many tanks failed to land in each assault noted because someone thought tanks could float.
And BTW, Operation Dragoon was in Southern France, half a country away from Normandy, and six weeks afterwards. Nice try. You may as well include the totals for tanks landed during the 1972 REFORGER while you're at it.

2) How many times and ways did people try backroom and up-front attempts to axe the entire Marine Corps, culminating in the (need for, and actual) Key West agreements of 1947, permanently delineating service roles and missions?

You know, if you're trying to argue that Marine brass isn't worried about getting the axe, you might not want to establish historical precedent that'd give them good reason.

That doesn't even make any sense.
The entire reason for the Key West Agreements was specifically to stop in perpetuity the ceaseless efforts of numerous Army fanboys and their allies in the White House and Congress from trying to specifically disband the Marines, time after time. That result simmered and so pissed former National Guard Captain Harry S Truman off so badly he opined that the Marines had a better propaganda contingent than Joseph Stalin, which wisecrack got him spanked so hard afterwards that he had to apologize in writing.

In the early 1980s they were absolutely convinced their backs were against the wall on the matter, especially after the failure of Operation Eagle Claw cast serious doubt on the feasibility of long-range helicopter operations, while antiship missile tech was pushing the boundaries out farther than helicopter range. They needed something that could do the same job farther and faster, or a miracle. Cue the V-22 Osprey.

The only reason the V-22 has survived development hell as long as it has to become a useful aircraft fifteen years late is because the Marines bet the farm on it and thus were determined to fight for it to the bitter end. Every other branch that pitched in started to cut their orders when it showed every sign of a boondoggle. Dick Cheney repeatedly tried to kill it. But the Marines didn't budge, because as leadership saw it: No Osprey, soon no Marine Corps. The thing survived a Congressional hearing where they had recorded audio of the squadron maintenance officer telling the maintainers lie to make sure the program stayed alive, for crying out loud.

For an outfit proud of how it never has enough of everything, especially money, that's an awful lot of funds and political clout spent on something like that.

That's so much fantasy and malarkey rolled into one ball it's hard to know where to start.
1) No one in the Marine Corps was convinced "their backs were to the wall" in any way, shape, or form in the early '80s.
Having been in the Corps at the time, I plead some small personal knowledge of the matter.
The Marines were, in fact, riding so high that had it not been for the Beirut barracks catastrophe in 1983, it was widely held that Gen. P.X. Kelley was likely to become the first USMC general to be named to head the JCS.
2) Re: Operation Eagle Claw
The only Marine participation in the mission whatsoever was to borrow the pilots for the helicopters, which were themselves borrowed from the U.S. Navy, in an operation headed by the U.S. Army, based on crack intelligence supplied by the CIA.
This is how aircraft never flown before by the pilots in question, and designed to operate over the ocean, were flown into an unforeseen sandstorm of epic proportions, and the secret site for the next phase rendezvous cleverly placed astride a major inter-desert highway and trade route, thus destroying any chance of the mission's success, or even clandestine nature, when literal busloads of Iranian tourists stumbled into Desert One on the 1AM bus to BFE.
After well and truly stepping on their dicks with both feet, the commander(s) of this cobbled together clusterfuck were stricken by disaster in the haste to unass the area and abandon the entire Bay Of Pigs-style fiasco, which then resulted in the remaining pilots trying to move aircraft around in the dark, followed by flaming fireballs, multiple deaths, and worldwide American embarrassment.
3) The Osprey was conceived of because of two things: the age of the CH-46 helicopters the Marines had been left to fly uninterrupted since 1954, and the experience with helicopter operations during this little thing called The Vietnam War. Perhaps you've heard of it?
I'll skip further explanation of the latter without recourse to the numbers of fat, slow helicopters lost there, not to mention those on board, and simply note that the Marines in the mid-80s were flying helicopters with more hours on the airframes than Chuck Yeager had aloft, in aircraft that were almost as old as the actual X-1. If the Air Farce had been flying jets this old, they would have been flying F-86 Sabres as front-line fighters. In 1985.
Mayhap at some point you've acquainted yourself with the two entire generations of aircraft that came and went in that same time frame, while the USMC's workhorse assault helicopters from the 1950s were overhauled and duct-taped together, over and over and over.
As for the viability of long-range helicopter operations, maybe you want to ask the 101st Airborne, from some 12 years after you claim Desert One sounded some sort of death-knell of the idea.

3) The DoD is never going there since, because the Marines have traditionally provided 20-25% of the nation's teeth for less than 10% of the defense budget, going back to most any time this side of FDR.

(Citation Needed)

Read up, bucko.

"The Marine Corps accounts for around six percent of the military budget of the United States. The cost per Marine is $20,000 less than the cost of a serviceman from the other services, and the entire force can be used for both hybrid and major combat operations,[95] enabling it to carry out full scale military action, peacekeeping operations and humanitarian aid – the entire Three Block War."

The Marines field three active ground combat divisions, the Army has ten. That makes the USMC 23% of the total, at least it did before Common Core took over mathematics instruction. And of the Army's ten divisions, something like a third are NG weekend warrior round-out formations, vs. the Marines' three 100% full-time divisions.
Feel free to delve into the numbers for air components, and let me know if I missed the mark there. With budget cuts, I'm not sure currently what percentage three 100% active-duty Marine Air Wings are out of the total airframe breakdown. But clearly they aren't handicapped by having axed/mothballed entire squadrons over the last 10 years.

"

4) Call me anytime the Army is willing to put up with 6 months' deployment on a gator freighter as an institutional mission, forever. Better yet, take a picture, it'll last longer.

If a marine can fly, a soldier can ride a boat.

That'll be the day.
Marines have been flying since August of 1912, approximately six weeks or so after Hap Arnold became the second Army pilot.
By contrast, US Marines have been aboard ships for months on end non-stop since 1775, whereas the longest Army shipboard deployment was probably the amount of time it took to get from Norfolk to Morocco in 1942, 5-10 days or so.
They seem to prefer dry land pretty conclusively.

5) The last time the Marines' fundamental institutional mission included "ship boarding" was, IIRC, somewhere back when propulsion was measured in square yards of sail. You might want to get current on your professional reading if this is news.

Hey, I only said "at least as far back as the 1940s." If you really want to argue "since 1850," go right ahead.

Since I see a lot of flagrant point-missing on this: As time went on and boarding enemy ships as a primary means of neutralizing them became obsolete, the role shrank to inspections and seizures. It is correct that this job is primarily done by Coast Guard (and Navy) personnel. That's the evolutionary dead-end of boarding actions. The other branches have seen similar concepts hit the wall and diminish or completely disappear, like battleships. Other concepts, like a fast flanking force and destruction of enemy air assets, never truly go out of style. The Marines, meanwhile, evolved by focusing on the other part of their job, ship-to-shore ops... and by adopting MAGTF, i.e. becoming a Mini-Me to the other branches, primarily the Army.

1) You act like they just wander around looking for missions, instead of following the ones they've been given.
2) You really ought to sit down for five minutes and read the respective services' specific missions and roles laid out in the Key West agreements sometime, just so you know what you're talking about.
3) The point you tried to make - inaccurately - was that the sole two raisons d'etre for the Marines' existence were ship boarding, and naval landing parties. That was partly true from 1775 until maybe 1850 or 1870. It hasn't been any kind of true as such since at least the late 1800s.
Google things like Alfred Thayer Mahan, Cuba, the Phillipines, World War I, Gallipoli, WWII, Higgins boats, Major Ellis, "Advanced Base Operations In Micronesia"and Amphibious Warfare in general to see where and how this may have changed a wee bit, and how it was the Army playing Me Too in amphibious warfare from before it was a thing, all the way to the present day.
(You're also hugely overlooking that a major reason for Marines - in every navy of the original period - was to keep the fo'c's'le squids from getting rambunctious and holding a mutiny. Suffice it to say that the average recruit from 1800 bears little resemblance to the current products of the 21st century's all-volunteer force, and that crew morale has morphed quite a bit as well over that timeframe, or that would likely still be a reason as well.)
Incidentally, Marines did that job so well that there has been only one mutiny on a commissioned US warship, and that one so small it had no Marines on board.
The fact that it's an unnecessary job now doesn't argue for their obsolescence as an institution either.

6) As for Army competence at ship to shore operations vs. the Marines, in leave you with this quote from long after "the 1940s":

"We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the hell is going on?" [(Army) Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; during the assault on Grenada, 1983

Uh-huh.

Nearly four years later, Vessey neither recalled that remark nor asking MG Trobaugh to employ Rangers in a daytime assault role. In a letter to the JHO in 1996, GEN Vessey stated that “My memory of the events, a check of my phone log for that day, and my generally fairly scrupulous insistence that the existing chain of command be used, lead me to say that the assertion that I called Trobaugh is just, flat wrong, despite the Baltimore Sun article.”

Uh huh.
Suggest the "If I claim I don't remember it, it must have never really happened" Defense to Shrillary, and let's see how that goes.
that tactic seems to have been a poor choice since at least 1973.
As those of us old enough to have been around then still accurately recall.

The military of today is different than the military of 1800, and the Marines perform necessary tasks to more than uphold their share, contrary to any farcical assertions to the contrary.
And at bargain basement rates.

Conversely, if you want to argue that the Navy could cashier 300-400 admirals with a net increase in efficiency, or that Clinton SecDef Les Aspin's pig-headed insistence to shove three disparate projects into one airframe (the F-35 Thunderjug) is a hopeless jackassical multi-billion$ multi-decade boondoggle of biblical proportions*, I'll subscribe to your newsletter.

My compliments on an epic thread-jack. :jacked:




*(Nota bene that all the Marines asked for way back in 1992 was a follow-on to the Harrier that carried more payload and flew faster. Easy peasey.
What happened after that was what usually happens when the Air Force plays john, Lockheed plays hooker, and DoD hands over the taxpayers' credit card to facilitate the deal: everyone gets fucked. The last time anyone made a deal with this kind of savvy, a family cow was exchanged for magic beans. Then as now, the only answer is to chop it down.)