As someone else said, the Marines were already engaged in the Pacific War and there was no good reason to repurpose them to land in Normandy, given the logistics involved (transporting them half way across the globe, for starters). I guarantee no US General said "Well, a beach landing is what the Marines should be used for, but Normandy is going to have high casualties, so let's just use the Army as cannon fodder and spare the 'elite' Marines so we can use them in the Pacific." The fact is that it just made no logistical sense to use the Marines there when the Army could do the job just as well and the Marines were charged with fighting in the Pacific. I guarantee you that if an equal number of Marines had landed on Normandy rather than the Army, the casualty figures would've been more or less the same.
Also, no offense to anyone, but I've frankly never understood the perception that Marines are elite. For sure, you have to be in top physical condition and be very brave to land on a beach with fire coming down all around you. But as someone who has met both Army soldiers and Marines, I never could tell much difference in my interaction in terms of the quality of the person. I've known two Marines directly -- an uncle and my brother's friend, and both were complete idiots and that lowered my opinion of the Marines. So, please educate me on the why the Marines are so elite.
Why put marines in what would largely be a land campaign against mechanized forces when you had islands to take? Shipping them over and then back would take way too much time. Besides - by then the army had access to the same amphibious equipment and tactics the marines did along with the time to train with them
It's laughable that there are 7 votes to 4 that the Navy is better that the Marine Corps. I can only assume that those votes are by people in the Navy.
Why put marines in what would largely be a land campaign against mechanized forces when you had islands to take? Shipping them over and then back would take way too much time. Besides - by then the army had access to the same amphibious equipment and tactics the marines did along with the time to train with them
I don't know... Perhaps they took it as a measure of intelligence. And given that Navy enlisted guys are smart enough to get the Officers to do all the fighting... Not much of a contest there.
But it's OK: We'll give you a ride to the fight when you need one. :wub:
Lol what the fuck are you talking about.
The analogy was that if you knew you were eventually going to get on base by hit by pitch, you wouldn't put up your best pitch hitter
References to a couple very old running jokes between the Navy and Marines.
Lmao. This thread keeps getting worse and worse. The Germans, especially in the western front, were not very mechanized. They used horses right up till the end.
It's even more simple than that. The Pacific war was a Naval war. It was fought in the ocean. The Marines serve aboard ships and support the Navy with troops to take beachheads and airstrips. Unless the entirety of the US navy was getting moved to the European theater there was never going to be a move to put the US Marines over there.
Europe was a large scale, mechanized ground war across a continent. That's what the Army did back then and there was little use of a Navy so little use for Marines.
Air Force
Horsies accounted for half of transport but they were not used in battle so Exterous' point remains.
This of course. Ops completely lost it, no poll for it? No vote.
I wonder what they were doing when that went down
No Air Force during WW2. It was part of the Army.
Technically yes, but in reality no. It was the Army Air Corps and it operated independently of the grunts. Also that component had horrendous causalities from the war as opposed to modern times.
Rangers were involved in scaling the cliffs of Point Du Hoc. They are technically not Marines, but they are the best of the best.
Rangers are good but each SF or special combat regimen has it's own MOS or area of expertise. MARSOC Marines would be the equivalent of Rangers, but a bit tougher IMO.
lol no, MARSOC tries to be a blend between Rangers and green berets while being extremely pointless. SOCOM already has two tier 2 assets that does what MARSOC does while being designed for the task better. it's my understanding that MARSOC generally recruits out of force recon and I've read a few times that force recon marines consider ranger school the pinnacle of their career.