I’ve been having a dicussion with a friend of mine who lives in Germany and he’s having a hard time understanding exactly what the big difference between the Army and Marines are.
So far he understands that one has strong ties to(and in some ways, falls under) the Navy and that the Marines are smaller then the Army but more elite, but other then I’m not how exactly how to lay out the differences.
The Marines are a specialized unit whose original function is to execute invasions of enemy territory from seacraft. Once the Marines have secured a beachhead, other types of troops are brought in.
acsenray pretty much nailed it. In the simplest of terms, Marines take objectives and the Army holds (occupies) or enlarges the hold on them.
Peace,
mangeorge
The US Marine Corps. is actually a subsidiary of the US Navy rather than a separate branch of the armed forces. It’s been called the “Navy’s Army”.
That may have been true at one time sqweels, but the Marines are definitely a seperate branch of the armed forces.
I just looked it up. The Marines became a seperate branch of the armed forces on Jan. 5, 1965.
The first formal marine service was the Royal Marines of Britain, formed 28 October 1664 as the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot. By the 18th century, most modern navies employed marines, and the U.S. was no exception when they became an independant nation. The resolution for the raising of two battalions of marines was passed on 10 November 1775.
In general, don’t say this to a Marine you aren’t very good friends with. “Marine Corps…oh yes, isn’t that the Naval infantry?” is a common gibe at Marines, not all of whom will see the humor in it.
The Navy is the Marine Corps’ taxi service, if you wanna go THERE. (At least the Gator Navy.)
Although their Commandant is a full-fledged equal member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the USMC is still part of the Department of the Navy.
From this link it seems that although the USMC is its own service, it’s definitely subordinate to the Navy in most circumstances.
Hmm… But Marine officer cadets still go to Annapolis or Naval ROTC don’t they? Perhaps someone who can clarify the precise relationship can weigh in.
I will say that I find the idea that it’s impermissable to refer to Marine ground troops generically as “soldiers” to be something of a conceit.
My
Ass
Rides
In
Navy
Equipment
[running for cover…]
HPL,
In some ways, the Marine Corps is part of the Navy and in others it isn’t. Under the structure of the DoD, the Marine Corps is part of the Department of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Navy is also the Secretary of the Marine Corps.
The Marine Corps gets its funding through the Department of the Navy, and the Marines don’t have their own medical corps. Their medics and doctors are provided by Navy officers and sailors.
All Navy ships at sea have a detachment of Marines on board to provide security, and to send ashore if the need arises. (Some Navy ships have small detachments of Marines, others large detachments.)
The marines were originally known as naval infantry, and are still called that in the armed forces of many countries.
The USMC also has the function of providing security at US Embassies and consulates.
The basic mission of the Marine Corps is to be transported and logistically supported by the US Navy, and to assault and capture beachheads by amphibious assault. They are shock troops, and by traditional doctrine, after capturing a beach and holding it, would after a few weeks turn it over to the US Army.
All this is very flexible though. In 1944 during D-Day, the US Army captured their own beaches, and as far as I know, no US Marines were involved in the Normandy Invasion. (In WW II, the USMC worked almost exclusively in the Pacific Theater of Operations.)
In Vietnam, the Marine Corps served exclusively as ground infantry and were assigned areas of operations just as Army infantry was.
The Marine Corps does have their own air support, which is distinctly different from naval aviation.
As far as the question of the Marine Corps being more elite, I would say that is mostly in their own minds. More elite than traditional straight-leg infantry, but not more elite than Army paratroopers, Rangers, or Special Forces.
In some ways, you can think of the Marines being to the Navy as the 82nd Airborne Division is to the Air Force.
Regards,
Sky
And hotel, and restaurant, and source of endless entertainment. 
We were pretty tight with the Marines aboard my ship. (Gator, '64 - '68)
We had to be. There were 900 of them and 300 of us. When the odds are even like that, you tend to find a balance.
Jarheads. Gotta love 'em. 
The Marines are not part of the Navy, and your link does not state that they are subordinate to the Navy in any circumstance.
In a nutshell, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps are two branches of our armed forces, both of which are within the Department of the Navy. The 4-star admiral in charge of the U.S. Navy is the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), and the 4-star general in charge of the U.S. Marine Corps is the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). Both of these uniformed officers are on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and both report to the Secretary of the Navy, who is a civilian member of the President’s cabinet. The CMC does NOT report to the CNO. They are equals.
Thus, the U.S. Marine Corps is within the Department of the Navy, but is NOT part of the U.S. Navy. Clear as mud? 
BTW, prospective Marine officers are midshipman who attend the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, or NROTC units, alongside prospective Navy officers. There is no military academy solely for Marine officers. (I believe it is possible for prospective Marine officers with college degrees to go directly to Marine Officer Candidate School, however.)
Yeah, they are. As mentioned before, they draw their funding through Navy channels and actively utilize Navy material and personnel. Their mission also includes shore and ship security, guarding embassies, and amphibious operations (i.e. establishing beachheads).
True, they sometimes publicly act as an independent branch, have a seat on the JCS, and operate alongside the Army and Air Force, they are most definitely a branch of the Navy.
Even the US Marine Corps Seal indicates this.
Tripler
A jarhead wannabe.
I had the same discussion with a few Bundeswehr colleagues when I served in Germany. Germans in general, don’t get the concept of U.S. Marines, as Germany is essentially a landlocked country with no real experience or tradition of Amphibious Warfare. Also, the term “Marines”, which is a uniquely American-coined term, is oftentimes misunderstood by Germans and many Europeans, because it is similar to the German word for “navy”, which is Marine.
Due to their history, however, Germans do innately understand the concept of elite “shock troops,” which is essentially what the Marines are. (Shock troops in German is “Stosstruppen”.)
Germans also know the difference between the Wehrmacht and the SS, which is the analogy I used to describe the difference between the U.S. Army and the USMC in terms of training.
In terms of explaining the difference in missions between the Army and Marines to a German, it takes a little bit more effort. But since most Germans understand what “Blitzkrieg” is, which is simply our modern-day “Air-Land Battle concept” repackaged for propoganda purposes, one can say that the USMC’s role is analagous to the Panzer corps during Blitzkrieg: to serve as the tip of the spear in offensive thrusts.
Exactly as the the Panzers were used in Blitzkrieg, Marines exploit their speed and agility – as a result of having a short logistical tail – to punch through enemy defenses and temporarily hold objectives until they can be turned over to a larger follow-on force (the Army).
In the past though, Marines have been misused in many ways. Marines, because they have a much smaller logistical set-up than the Army does, are neither trained nor equipped for fighting sustained offensive actions for extended periods, or for conducting deep thrusts into enemy territory (that is the role of the Army).
Marines were disastrously deployed in such roles during the Korean War during the Chosin/Changjin Reservoir campaign in November of 1950. This wrongheaded move resulted in the 1st Marine Division being routed by the Communists and a costly retrograde action down an 80-mile-long mountain road in the dead of winter.
Marines are also ill-suited for static roles (Khe Sanh) and in purely defensive roles (1983 Marine Barracks debacle in Beirut). Although Marines have been used in PKO’s such as “Operation Restore Hope” in Somalia, 1992, I would argue that they are not well-suited for these.
You go tell that to the Spanish Marines, who date the Tercio de Mar (Seagoing Regiment) to 1537
And we need a semanticist here to figure out whether “subordinate” or “subsidiary” is the correct term for what people are trying to say (remember: “subordinate” has the implication that you take orders from the other fellow), before I even go near THAT one.
Interestingly, the Army Air Corps and Air Forces never attained the condition of a separate service within the DoWar – when that branch was spun off, it got its own completely separate sub-cabinet department and Academy. I guess being the only ones with the ability to drop nukes in 1948 counted for something
As previously mentioned, the main difference is in the assigned tasks and the overall organizational philosophy. As I see it, the Marine Corps is historically the rapid-reaction forward-deployed force, and even if it may get used at times as regular medium infantry, * its entire operational assemblage and management theory is optimized for high-impact tactical warfare. * The “everyone a rifle infantryman” Gung-Ho doctrine is necessary because the Marine formations do not have the luxury of a “long tail” of support even when reserves are called. Similarly, they have their own integral tactical aviation because the doctrine calls for their use in situations where you may not have a USAF or Naval Av. unit handy nearby.
In the Army, the Ranger batallions, the Special Forces, and some elements in the various divisions are also fast, hard-hitting, highly selective no-BS units. But the Army also has to field a heavy Corps of armored or mechanized divisions for slug-it-out battles of attrition and/or overwhelming-power knockout punches; specialized air-assault, mountain-ops, arctic-ops and paratroop divisions and brigades for unusual locations; plus do a ton of collateral functions such as transportation, construction, civilian affairs administration, etc.; be in charge of holding and occupying land and pacifying it. That, plus operate as a fixed rather than contingent, political/strategic component – all those heavy divisions stationed in Germany for almost 50 years, or the units used as (essentially sacrificial) “tripwires” in Korea and Berlin, for instance. With all this, and counting on a reserves almost as large as the regular force itself (including a National Guard which on top of its warfighting tasks has also hometown civil-emergency response duties) there is logically a different attitude, style and outlook.
SkyCowboy thinks that;
Well, actually no. Not exactly. My ship, USS Ogden (LPD 5) was one of several Amphibious Ready Groups in Vietnam. They did not hold ground. They most often deployed when another group was overwhelmed, or when others were busy elsewhere and an objective needed to be taken.
Then they returned to the ship.