Only slightly better? Well not in my book. The army is still on the starting line when the Marines are finishing the race to say the least.

The only REAL problem with the Army is that it doesn't even attempt to instill the same spirit of brotherhood that the USMC does.

The average Marine unit is probably as good as a sharp Army unit.

What do you mean by elite, 101st or 82nd? In general I might agree with that, but if you look at the Infantry units separately from all the support elements, I'd say no.

When I was in 2/75 I was able to see how all of the above operated and that's the conclusion I've come to.

Who was first into Baghdad?

I hope this doesn't degenerate into an Army Vs. Marine Corps thread. Before it does I will say that even though I was a Marine I sincerely believe that both services have a lot to be proud of. They both performed extremely well. They gave any potential enemy a lot to think about. Before GWII I had some serious doubts about the current generation of young people in our armed forces. I am now supremely confident and very relieved that we are still producing true warriors. I sleep better knowing that they are protecting our nation. Here's to generation "Y". You make me proud [beer]

What an amateurish thread.  There's always somebody, in the grandstands, trying to start the fight, but never willing to fight the fight.

I was amazed by ALL the services and don't need to compare them, except to say that they all get better with every generation.

I smell a pissing contest incoming........

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Your experience?
I've got 15 years of Army service.  I've trained with Marines, called in CAS with the Air Force and have travelled courtesy of the Navy.  I respect them all.

There's always someone of questionable intent trying to diminish the accomplishments of better men than themselves.  I think Teddy Roosevelt had something to say about the man "in the arena."

1. You've opened yet another can of worms. 2. You're off yer fookin rocker. 3. Define "average Marine unit" and
"average "normal" Army combat unit". I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now...but you've got your foot 1/2 in your mouth.

EDIT: Zardoz, I'll almost have to give you that one. The Army doesn't need to be, nor should it be "just like the Marine Corps" however they could do a better job of instilling pride in my fellow soldiers. That's a topic of much debate and is not fit the scope of this thread.

Sukebe, I hope it doesn't turn into that either, we'll see....

The 3rd I.D. may not be "elite" in the common useage of the word but their combat record is long and distinguished (like my Johnson [rofl] I always wanted to use that one). Audie Murphy was with the 3rd I.D. From WWI to WWII, to Korea, to Desert Storm they have fought bravely and struck fear in the hearts of our enemies. They picked the right division for the job when they sent "The Rock of The Marne" to Iraq.

I was a Marine grunt (0351 Rockets) for 4 years. Platoon 2007 Honor Man and later Alpha 1/4 and Golf 2/6. I joined in 1975 right after Frequent Wind and the fall of Viet Nam. At that point the Corps wasn't shining quite as brightly as before and no where near as good as they seem to be now. We had shit for weapons and drug, moral and racial problems were everywhere. The NEWEST 60mm tube in my wpns platoon was made in 1949. I always envied the Army with their new weapons, jump and Ranger school and training budgets. I did good though, made Sgt (E5) in under two years, in fact all of my promotions were meritorious. Even made 2nd Mar Div Marine of the Month while I was at Lejeune. I did all of this mostly by just doing what I was told and staying out of jail. It was easy to look good then. I'm certain I would have been just an average Marine today. The quality of the kids in our armed forces right now brings tears to my eyes. They are the best the greatest nation in the world can produce. I'm sure their isn't a Marine grunt in Iraq that wouldn't have given his left nut to be riding around in a Bradley instead of that f**king LVT7 (I know it has a new name now but it's the same piece of shit I had to ride around in at 29 Palms in 1978) I also would guess that their may be some Army leg platoon commanders who wished his kids had some of that Marine Corps espree de corps too.  Bottom line is that todays Army and Marine Corps is full of the greatest fighting men and women alive. Different equipment, different mission, same heart.

Sukebe, glad you could work that line in there. [;)] Very well said on the rest too.

Okay here's my take on this whole armchair QB'ing BS. 1. The Marien Corps has an "image", we all know it. 2. The Army doesn't try to claim this or that per se. Our "image" is quite different form the Marine Corps and it reflects in our differing missions and recruiting methods. To each their own, but it's been proven yet again that the Army can kick ass. (Marines as well).

I wish people could get through all of the BS anecdotal evidence that's out ther and remove their heads from their 4th point of contact.

I spent 3 years as a grunt (11-m, C company 1-15 infantry) with the 3rd ID and trained with the Marines at the NTC (Ft Irwin, CA) many times. I can gaurantee you that the 3rd infantry will fight as hard and as good as the Marines. That said, the Marines are an awesome fighting force and have absolutely shined in Iraq, but so has the 3rd ID. I think Rocketman's post was great, I couldn't have said it better myself.

OUTSTANDING POST! Thank you for your service.

I was also a Marine Grunt (0311 Rifleman) for four years.  I've served in Guantanamo Bay and was with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division after that.  My personal take on it is that the Marines do more with less.  They have a smaller budget, older weapons and less men, while the army has MANY more men, MUCH newer weapons and a MUCH larger budget.  Normally, we get the hand me downs from the army and that what we operate on.  That being said, my brother is about to retire from the Army and I don't think there is any shame in that, the Army is a finer army than any in the world.  Just because the Marines are first in and the army is little more than a glorified police force doesn't mean anything.  [;D]  



Edited to add: Although I do think we could kick the army's but any time any day!!!   [:K]

My point is, that if the Army would do more to instill the pride of simply being an American Soldier into it's people, morale would improve across the board; and as morale improves, so does performance. I didn't say or imply that the Army should be "just like the marine Corps."

Not this again...Oh well, here we go.

The USMC has always had a history of maintaining a high standard.  They have maintained this standard in peacetime or war.

Historically, the Army has fluctuated in standards by maintaining lower standards in peacetime (sometimes really low) and then taking a good year or so to get it's stuff together to come back and win wars.  A great example of this would be WWII, where the USMC started out very small but effective and ended up large and effective.  The Army started out small and ineffective and ended up absolutely friggin huge and effectvie.  You can champion one service or the other, but there's few folks that will degrade a GI that landed in Normandy and fought all the way across Europe for over a year, nor too many that will degrade a Marine that lands on Iwo Jima and fights for 32+ days until it's secure.  After WWII, the USMC got small and effective, and the Army got small and ineffective again.  That's history.

Those days have been pretty much over for quite some time.  Both services maintain a high standard of training.  It really should be no suprise that the 3ID kicked butt, frankly few Army divisions wouldn't be able to kick butt as well simply because a higher standard of training has been maintained.  The Army made a decision that it wasn't going to have the luxury of that year to train-up, so in recent history it's continually raised it's standards to be able to win from the first shot.

The USMC continues to maintain a high standard.  Probably a higher standard than the Army.  Some of this is because of the nature of the Marine Corps.  The Army is vastly larger and far more encompassing than the USMC.  A direct comparison of the two is hard.  In "Iraqi Freedom" the USMC did nothing better than an Army heavy division would have.  They were simply the one's on hand for the job.  The reason they were the one's on hand was because of the ability of the USMC to project power.  The Army would not have been able to get another division there in the same time (case in point, see the 4th ID).

That is not meant to diminish the USMC.  They were able to bring that power to the battelfield faster than the Army could, and they maintain a power projection ability better than the Army.  This was also the farthest inland that the USMC has fought in it's history, proving that they can do it.  When you really look at it, the USMC did indeed shine in this war.  

The Army itself maintiains a vast mission base that's required of it.  Because of this there is more to the Army mission than the Marine one.  The Marine Corps can focus better on what it does better.  The Army has to perform not only the current wartime combat forces, but those follow-on occupation forces, peacekeeping forces in other countries, deterrent forces in Korea, and elsewhere, and maintain support elements that are far higher than the Marine Corps has to deal with (like the Corps of Engineers maintaining inland water ways and damns, etc).  Like a large corporation, the Army becomes more wasteful and less "lean and mean".  

The Army is far larger in manpower than the USMC, and so recruits from a larger base of people.  The USMC goes after a smaller number of people and is more select.  The Esprit de Corps starts from the begining.

An analogy I've used before is a police force.  You need a good SWAT team.  However a SWAT team is not all you need for a police force.  You need patrol, air, dispatch, bomb squad, K-9, SRO, academy/training, undercover, nacro, detectives of all sorts, administration, maintenance, etc, as well and they will be far larger in number than the SWAT team.  Also there will be many instances where you need a SWAT team, and many you need one of the others.  The USMC is the SWAT team, and the Army is like the rest of the police force.  While there's a great deal of overlap in duties, the USMC trains for a specific, fairly small set of missions.  They train hard for those missions.  The Army has a wide range of missions, and it trains hard for those, but does not have the "focus" the USMC does.  Because of this, and it's overwhelming size, the Army tends to be "less elite" simply because it isn't "elite" to being with.  

What you saw with the 3ID kicking ass from the begining is what the Army has currently evolved into.  A highly capable force that is the best Army in the world and doesn't need that "ramp-up" time it used to.  The USA can't afford that luxury anymore, so the Army had to adapt.  The USMC has always been in the position of excellence, and I doubt that will ever change.

Ross  

Great post and I agree with 90% of it.

One bone of contention is that 4ID's gear was sitting off the coast of Turkey for like 6 weeks, waiting for the go word.  They would have been in MUCH faster, if necessary.  Having said that, yes, the Marine Corps is our best combination of firepower and fast deployability.  The 82nd is very quick to deploy but they don't pack nearly as much punch.  The MEUs and MEFs have tanks and heavy arty plus lots of CAS.

The other bone of contention is with part of your SWAT vs regular police analogy.  While the Marine Corps is generically the most motivated and the toughest of the two, the Army has 3 Ranger divisions plus Special Forces and Delta.  The Ranger units are comparable in training and motivation to Forced Recon.  The Marine Corps has their FAST teams while Army has Delta.  Army SF has a unique mission of guerilla traing and counter-insurgency.  I'm not sure if the USMC has anything similar.  Delta is widely considered to be the best in the world at what they do.

In short, the Marines' conventional fighting forces, particularly the infantry, are the best America has to offer.  Probably the best the world has to offer.  The Army's tankers are probably the best in the world at what they do.  Actually, I don't think the USMC even had tanks (full MBTs not IFVs) until like 15 years ago.  Give 'em some time.  The USMC helo CAS might be better than the Army's as well, I'm not sure.

Your point about the Army needing to recruit a larger number of people than the Marine Corps is dead on.  You can't scare away the Finance guys.  [;)]

This shouldn't turn into a thread of which branch is better. Both have done excellent jobs and should be proud of their accomplishments. Each service has different missions and to compare them is like apples and oranges. Yes I am partial to the Army, but needless to say the Marine Corp has done a job well done. Every branch in this war was utilized and operated as they should. My family and hubby's cover every branch of service. We all think we're better, but in reality they are all great. My son is looking into the Marines, I can thank my father-in law for that, but what ever branch he chooses I will be proud. I am proud of everyone who has served. Shoot a friend of ours who just came back from the gulf is Air Nat. Guard. Their mission totaly different than Army or Marines. We were glad to welcome him back home.We couldn't have won this without every branch of service involved.  

It is all in the HEART & SOUL of the individual. A uniform and equipment dont make the soldier...it is the individual fighting spirit...nuff said.

Both branches had the same objective, but different methods of accomplishing that objective.  They both did a fantastic job.



The 101st did plenty.  SF and the 173rd did a good job securing the north.  Rangers (I assume) did a good job of securing the west(oil fields, airfields, dams, etc).

Really, the Army did alot more than what was shown on TV.  Operational security keeps alot of what goes on with the Army spec ops forces from being streamed live to our living rooms.

But like I said, no branches outperformed the others.  They all did a damn good job.

Seems to me that a [i]self-professed military historian[/i] should not be making sweeping generalizations like "Marines are equivalent to elite Army formations".

Ridiculous.  

The Marines have had tanks since WWII at least.  Marine tankers have gone up against Japanese tanks, and went up against North Vietnamese tanks in some of the very few tank vs. tank engagements in Vietnam.  The tank though has never been as central to the USMC as it has to the Army because of force structure. The USMC has one type of division.  The three active divisions are all structured pretty much the same, as that's what works for their mission.  In this structure, they don't have a large tank force, but they are indeed there and always have been.  They just aren't designed for head-to-head high-intensity armored warfare like the Army heavy units are.

The Army on the other hand, due to it's differing mission, developed different types of divisions.  There are several types of divisions without tanks (Air Assault, Airborne, Light Infantry) and two with them (Mech and Armor).  You can get a feeling of the difference in the way the Army and Marine Corps works simply from this.  While the USMC has larger-in-size divisions than the Army, the Army has several Lt Infantry divs, several Mech divs, several Armored divs, an Air Assault div, an Airborne div, and several separate brigade sized combat units, like the Cavalry Regts, and separate brigades.  The size scope and purpose of the two branches are completely different. While they are both a land combat force, and have been used jointly in nearly every war, they are just not the same animal.

As for the rotary wing support, it's probably better in the Army because the Army has been limited to rotors and has developed that more, with more money, and frankly better platforms.  The USMC has great helicopter support, but they have the added advantage of their own fixed wing, so they don't have to rely only on helicopters like the Army.  USMC helos should be viewed as a piece of the Air Wing team and not a separate entity that should be compared to Army Aviation.  As the Army has to go out to the USAF to get their fixed wing, the Army has developed it's helicopter operations differently to the Marine Corps.  

If you just compare helicopters, the Army has better rotory-wing support than any other country, let alone a single service, but you can't directly compare the USMC CAS and CAS as supplied to the Army, as the Army doesn't have fixed-wing.  Comparing organic CAS assets, the Marine Corps is ahead of the game, no doubt.  

Yeah, my police analogy was not meant as a comparison of police capabilities to military ones.  It was just a comparison of one type of unit to others.  I chose the SWAT team, because everything they do supports the SWAT team (just like the USMC) mission.  The general police force has to support all the other missions, does most of the actual day-in day-out policing, and still performs special missions in it's own right (this would be the Army performing deterrence in the ROK, SF in several countries, peacekeeping, occupation, etc).  It was not meant as a direct comparison of police and military, but more of a comparison of how a small force with focus does things and how a larger force with differing, widespread missions fits into the scheme of things.  I should have used a Fire Department HAZMAT team (USMC) and the rest of the Fire Department (Army) to avoid confusion.

Ross

OK.  I didn't know the USMC had M48/M60 main battle tanks in Vietnam.  I thought they didn't get MBTs until the early/mid '80s when they were using the M60A3.  You learn something new everyday.

I specifically mentioned helo-based CAS to keep the USMC fixed-wing assets separate.  If you include the AV-8B and F/A-18, now you're talking about the total package the USMC has to offer where the Army relies on USAF support.  Even though the Army has the Apache attack helo, I've heard some horrendous stories regarding combat availability of these versus the AH-1W twin-engined Cobra used by the Marines.

Although not considered CAS, I think the USMC CH-53/53E is a superior troop transport compared to the Army UH-60 and CH-47.  You just gotta love the seven-bladed, three engine Super Stallion.