As a side note, if you watch those Horatio Hornblower movies, the marines are the ones in the bright red uniforms. They are distinct from the less flamboyantly garbed sailors, and their function is to engage in the nasty hand-to-hand when boarding other ships or landing to destroy/capture land installations.
[Historical Hijack]
You know, I guess you could think of the Marines today serving the way the Air Force did back in WWII, as the Army Air Corps. Same chain of command, but two “realms of operations”.
[/Historical Hijack]
Make sense?
Tripler
Still a Devil Dog wannabe.
Can someone explain the difference in logistical tails between the Marine and Army forces? How and why are they different? Also, what is the compostion of US forces currently operating in Iraq? Lastly, do the Marines have any paratrooper division?
Wow… so much misinformation in one post. :rolleyes:
“Marine” is not an American term; the Royal Marines were using that name fifty years before the Declaration of Independance.
Germany has 2389 km of coastline, which hardly qualifies them as “landlocked.” At the outbreak of WWII, Germany had one of the largest navies in the world. Ever heard of the Bismarck, for instance? How about U-boats?
The German word for ‘marine’ (in the English sense) is Marineinfanterist. There have been German Marines for more than 150 years.
JRDelirious did explain it pretty well in his/her post @ 6:01.
Marines for fast assault, Army for the long haul. Basically.
No paratroops, as far as I know.
Btw, I said Marines – not “Marine.” The common usage of either one of these terms without any other qualifier denotes the U.S. Marines or a U.S. Marine. Brits however, do not use this term. As you so aptly pointed out, they are the “Royal Marines.” A person serving in the RM is called a Royal Marine – not a marine. Big difference.
I said “essentially landlocked.” A country as large as Germany that only has a couple thousand kms of coast is essentially landlocked in my book – get it? Also, we’re not talking about the status of Germany’s forces in the past, and we’re certainly not talking about Germany’s pre-WW2 military power. That Germany was formerly a seapower is irrelevant today as well as to this discussion. Have you ever heard of Patton, Montgomery, Eisenhower, Zhukov and V-E day? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the great German war machine that you are talking about no longer exists. Furthermore, today’s Bundeswehr has little connection with the Wehrmacht of past. So why you are bringing up the U-boats and the Bismarck is beyond me, as it has nothing to do with the OP or the Bundeswehr. FYI, would you like to see the legacy of the great U-boat fleets or the Bismarck? For the U-boats, visit the dry-docked U-505 at the Museum of Sci. and Ind. in Chicago. For the Bismarck, take a bathysphere down to the bottom of the Atlantic or visit the Imperial War Museum in London.
Again you are talking about what has been, as Marine Infanterie were a relic of the pre-1914 Imperial Army. Problem is that the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) today does not have a combined-arms amphibious assault force like the U.S. Marines or Royal Marines, hence the OP.
If I’m in the UK, and I say “Marines,” everyone would assume I meant Royal Marines, not U.S Marines. Even in Tokyo, where there are many U.S. Marines, people expect you to qualify the terms “Marines” as America-jin.
You realize that Germany’s coastline is 0.06% of it’s area, versus 0.02% for the United States. Get it?
Really? Where did you get that from? Where does it say “now” or “current” or “excluding history” in the OP? Nowhere.
So, you’re still maintaining that there’s no “tradition” of amphibious warfare in Germany? One hundred and fifty years don’t count? Um, right.
There’s still nothing in the OP that jusitifies torturing semantics to make your sweeping statement about the origin of the term “Marines” seem correct, nor ignoring history.
Not really. It would depend more on your accent and the context.
Lest they be confused with the much vaunted Japanese Marines, right?
What does that have to do with Germany being a seapower today? Nothing, as Germany isn’t a seapower.
You totally hijacked this thread with this dumb discussion about pre-WW2 German military power. But if you insist, you need to consider the following. After 150 years of “tradition”, what does the modern German Navy have to show for it? Did the German military machine ever make any waves in the history of Amphibious Warfare? Not really.
And even though German’s Imperial Navy may have had Marine Infanterie, they are a far cry from today’s combined-arms MEUs.
Common usage of the term “Marines” among U.S. forces both here in the ROK and Stateside is as follows:
“Marines” refers to the USMC;
“ROK Marines” refers to the indigenous force here in Korea;
And of course, the “Royal Marines” are always referred to as “Royal Marines.”
It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Here’s a chart I goolged-up:
Nations with largest navies, 2000
Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies
- USA*# 74 Frigates 52 Destroyers 74 Submarines
- China 40 Frigates 20 Destroyers 65 Submarines
- Russia*# 18 Frigates 17 Destroyers 67 Submarines
- Japan 13 Frigates 42 Destroyers 16 Submarines
- France*# 38 Frigates 4 Destroyers 12 Submarines
- UK# 23 Frigates 11 Destroyers 16 Submarines
- India# 9 Frigates 12 Destroyers 16 Submarines
- S. Korea 9 Frigates 6 Destroyers 19 Submarines
- Italy*# 26 Frigates 4 Destroyers 7 Submarines
- Taiwan 21 Frigates 12 Destroyers 4 Submarines
- Turkey 22 Frigates 22 Destroyers 14 Submarines
12. Germany 12 Frigates 2 Destroyers 14 Submarines - N. Korea 3 Frigates 0 Destroyers 26 Submarines
Note:
- Frigates figures include cruiser ships and aircraft carriers
Denotes navies with aircraft carriers
So the Germans do have a respectably large navy. You don’t need a lot of coastline (notice Brazil & Australia aren’t on the list), just a rich port or two with a merchant fleet worth protecting.
Not all navy ships have a marine contingent - I’m pretty sure subs and destroyers don’t. That leaves Germany with 12 larger ships that might have naval infantry. So DO the Squareheads have Jarheads? I dunno: There’s some silly gamer’s site called the “German Marine Corps” that uses up a lot of google hits.
Any veterans want to correct me, please do. As I’ve had it explained from a Marine buddy, is that the USN and USMC are essentially seperate entities, however, in time of war the USMC falls under command of USN. This is extremely simplified, but the fastest way to describe USN and USMC command structure.
Old joke:
Why do they have Marines on Navy ships?
Because sheep would be too obvious.*
Old, but I like it – it annoys both my ex-navy brother and my ex-Marine cousin, at the same time. 
This may have changed, but when my dad was a Navy doctor around '65 or '66, he was sent to a Marine base because they had no doctors in the Marines. Him being stationed in the Caribbean was just a bonus.
-Lil
According to ‘Haze Gray’, the Germans do not have any proper amphibious assault ships. Most likely, they have some sailors trained in the use of small arms, with a handfull on the bigger ships to act as boarding parties and guards while docked.
Have they not learned? At this rate, they will never be able to successfully invade England!
The easiest way to explain it is this: The U.S. Army has the most elaborate material management command of any military force in the world. The Army has huge, multi-layered Logistical Commands which oversee everything from R&D, to procurement to distribution at every organizational level of everything ranging from ball bearings to beans to bullets.
The Marines, however, because they are a fraction of the size of the Army does not need and even eschews such an extensive logistical set-up for themselves simply because it is not part of their mission or their TO&E (table of organization and equipment). To have such an elaborate and mult-layered logistical support structure would also slow them down. This works both for and against the Marines. On one hand, it’s a big plus b/c the Marine Corps. can travel light and its logistical support and procurement process is really efficient compared to the Army’s.
In terms of procurement, the Marines typically either sponge off the Navy, receive U.S. Army hand-me-downs, or simply buy things literally “off the shelf”, due to the fact that they have a very small and efficient material procurement process compared to the Army’s.
On the other hand, Marines are forced to make due with what they have most of the time. Accordingly, Marines have developed a well-earned reputation for stretching the lifespan of their equipment and hardware long past its usefulness (e.g., the CH-46). In this respect, Marines are much more resourceful and thrifty than the Army is terms of equipment. But the reason for this is b/c they have to.
For example, the Marines were the only units during the first Gulf War to use the outated M-60A3 Main Battle Tank, while all U.S. Army units had long ago converted to the M1A1 Abrams. The Marines even to this day, still use the Vietnam-War-era UH-1H and AH-1 helicopters, while the Army has opted for the newer Blackhawks and Apache/Longbows. And most recently, the Marines opted to extend the life of the older M-16A2 rifle, even though they had a chance to “upgrade” like the Army did to the newer M-4 carbine.
As a result of being a smaller force with a higher ratio of “trigger pullers” to REMFs, a Marine division is more “teeth” than “tail”, when compared to a comparable Army division.
Because they are. Just accept it.
Geez! What is it with the questions? Are you a teenager per chance? As far as I know, the last Marines pulled out of Iraq in July of 2003, although I believe they have already been scheduled for a return to Iraq to pull a year of occupation duty starting sometime in 2004.
Dammit! This had better be your last #&@!%$ng question! (j/k;)
No, the Marines do NOT have a “paratrooper division.” They do however have Force Recon which is an airborne- and combat-diver qualified unit trained for air-land-sea insertions for the purpose of conducting beach reconaissances prior to amphib landings.
All Marines who opt for Recon must be experienced riflemen, who then volunteer and attend the U.S. Army’s Airborne School at Ft. Benning, GA to get jump qualified. When I went to Airborne School while I was in the Army, we had a platoon-sized group of Recon Marines in our class. As I remember, they all massively hated there three-week stint in the Army, b/c they couldn’t stand how inefficiently and slow we did everything, but I digress.
While “German Marine Corps.” sounds like it would be a good videogame, it has no basis in reality. The Bundesmarine (German Navy) does not have an amphibious assault landing force like the USMC. The concept of “Naval Infantry” harks back to a bygone era and is outmoded. The modern concept of combined-arms amphibious assault groups – such as the USMC – currently prevails and has replaced such archaic doctrine.
As recently as 1996 (when I ETS’d) the Army still had a lot of AH-1’s in service. Although it seems like last week, that is of course a long time in technology matters, so they may all be out by now. I had just passed through Ft. Hood in November; I should have paid more attention to the airfield. I did not, though, several Chevy CUCV’s still in the motor pools. They were supposedly being phased out even in 1996!
What really, really suprises me is the Army no longer using the M16A2? I’ll have to do a Google Pictures search. There we go; unless you really pay attention they’re pretty similar looking. But a side-by-side picture makes the difference obvious. Well, whaddayaknow?
The M-16A2 is still in service, although it’s mostly with REMF units. Here in Korea with the 2nd I-D at least, all combat arms units are issued the M-4.
Just from what I’ve been told, the USMC and USN are seperate entities in function. However, in time of war the USMC falls under the command of USN. Is this incorrect?
To pick at nits, the USMC did review the M-4, but found it overall to be inadequate. 14.5" barrels just don’t do the 5.56 justice, so they are sticking with a 20" for general issue. They are going with the M16A4, which is just a flat-top M16A2. A point of some interest, the M16A4 (for the USMC) will be produced by Fabrique Nationale. I gladly welcome our Belgian overlords. 
P.S. The M16A4 also has picatinny rails integrated into the handguards.
The Marine Corps does not piddle with things or people that don’t kill things, or things or people that materially support things or people that kill things. USMC has no medical staff or Chaplains. They use the Navy doctors and Corpsmen, and Navy Chaplains. They do have Lawyers, but Lawyers sometimes get to send people to their deaths, so I guess that counts. The U.S. Army has all those non-killing functions intrinsic to their branch of the military.