This is something I am rather surprised that Apache did not start already. The first of the new Marine Raider Battalions have now been dedicated, 71 years after the WWII Raider Battalions were all disbanded, the name has now officially returned. A Raider Regiment has been created, with the 3 former Special Operations Battalions becoming Raider Battalions. For those that do not know the history, the Raiders were one of many experimental units for the Marines created for WWII (another was the "Para-Marines", the most famous being Ira Hayes). There were 2 Radier Regiments (4 Battalions), basically US version of the English Commandos and the Executive Officer of the 2nd Raider Battalion was none other then Captain James Roosevelt, son of the Commander in Chief. They served with distinction in many campaigns, including Guadalcanal (specifically the Battle of Bloody Ridge). Disbanded in 1944, many think it is past time that they be reconstituted. http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/sto...c-units-raiders-name-10-month-delay/71072932/
Just as the name states, Force Recon is mostly a Reconnisance unit (think Rangers), this is more towards Special Operations (think Special Forces).
The Marine Corps took both Force Recon Companies and made them into the foundations for the two MSOBs (Marine Special Operations Battalions) within MARSOC. From the MARSOC Website; "(The) MSOB is organized, trained and equipped to deploy for worldwide missions as directed by MARSOC. It will consist of four Marine Special Operations Companies (MSOCs) and can be task-organized with personnel uniquely skilled in special equipment support, intelligence and fire-support." A Force Recon unit was so aggressive in Afghanistan that they were actually kicked out of the country in 2007. here's a link to the alleged incident - http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,129997,00.html
I wonder if these Marines will be able to fill the boon dockers (boots) of those original Marine Raiders who served over seventy years ago ? If they can't cover 7 miles per hour on a force march they should drop the name "Marine Raiders."
There was scuttlebutt floating around last year of MARSOC adopting the Marine Raidesr name and I opposed it for basically the same reason the Marine Raiders were disbanded during the Second World War.
You're exactly right, from an article...the Marine Corps was hesitant singling out elements as special., but former SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld pressed them to establish a separate command - the Marine Special Operations Command - to train and equip forces for the multi-service Special Operations Command. From what I understand...MARSOC took Force Recon units and trained them to be special operations and what is going on now is renaming these units to "Raiders" to honor legacy Marines. I think this all goes back to the Marine Corps re-establishing itself with it's roots. They were not designed to take and hold ground, they were designed as a self-sufficient light-medium attack force. Hit the enemy hard and fast...first...and let the Army take and hold the ground. This is what the Marines do. They are highly adaptable in this role and prefer a fluid battlefield. Most of the service operates, at least the USAF, on a 72 hour cycle in battle, planning begins 72 hours in advance of a tasking order...obviously this is a more fixed approach.
MARSOC was a PR thing, the Army's Special Forces and Delta and the Navy's SEAL Team Six was getting a lot of news coverage which they should have not gotten. There is no need to know what the SOCOM units are doing. Before the creation of MARSOC you already had Marines operating around the world where you didn't expect where we had troops deployed. It was known as "Bush's Secret War Against Al Qaeda." I think it was around 2003 or 2004 I was talking to a Marine Gunnery Sergeant and he let it slip out where he was deployed and it surprised me. The real reason why the Marine Corps didn't want MARSOC was that they would lose control over these Marines once they were part of SOCOM. Under the Goldwater–Nichols Act in 1986 the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps aren't in the normal military chain of command when it comes to SOCOM. Richard Marcinko who formed what would be SEAL Team Six mentions that when a Navy Admiral saw the long hair and beards he fired a broadside but couldn't do jack (*)(*)(*)(*) because he wasn't with in the SOCOM military chain of command. The Navy may have control over all of the other SEAL Teams but not SEAL Team Six. Now I'm not sure but I've heard that the Marine Corps wanted to keep control over SOCOM MARSOC Marines. I don't know if they won their battle or not. I suppose if MARSOC Marines don't need a haircut or a shave, the Marine Corps HQ's won their battle and have control over MARSOC. I saw an article last week saying that SOCOM needs some oversight especially SEAL Team Six. Related:
Rangers aren't recon units, they are a direct action raid force. I think the Raiders would probably be more like the Rangers than anything else.
The Army's Rangers were based upon the Marine Raiders of WW ll. It's the closest thing the Army has to U.S. Marines.
I said "think Rangers", not "they are Rangers". Rangers are indeed more akin to Commando forces, something with which Force Recon can and have also done because they were generally the closest thing the Corps had to that role. But their actual role is to do recon missions at or behind enemy lines in advance of an action by it's parent Marine Division. And this can be seen in the way they are assigned. Force Recon Battalions are assigned as one Battalion per Marine Division. They are unlike Rangers, in that they are not seperate units, but integral to the Battalion they belong to. Whatever. Sorry, but in this I think you are wrong. For one, the use of "Rangers" as special operations soldiers in the US Army dates back to even before the Colonial Militia when "Colonial Rangers" did raids against threatening Indian tribes. And the name "Rangers" appeared in the Army over and over until WWII. Like the Raiders, the Rangers were formed as the Army version of "British Commandos". FDR absolutely loved the idea of Commandos, and if the Air Force had existed then (and the Navy had Navy Infantry instead of a Marine Corps) they would have had a form of Commando created in WWII also. In fact, what many are unaware of is that some of the first US Rangers were involved in the failed Dieppe Raid (attached to a British Commando unit).
Funny name, but good on them for carrying on with some culture. They are not either SR or DA, they are both and more.... the difference is in the mission specialty and the chain of command (taskings). That difference in the mission specialty is the focus on small unit strategic action requires signifigant intelligence/awareness, specialty supporting assets, and timeliness in execution. Those 3 things are of a different nature to conventional units, and why they have different scope, funding, equipment etc. Its why the name is a bit funny, its a misnomer 'raider' its rather purely cultural.
You are using a words lineage going back to pre Revolutionary times. Today's Army's Rangers are based upon WW ll Rangers. But there were two different types of Army Rangers during WW ll. You had Merrill's Rangers who engaged the Japanese in the Burma and China campaigns, not amphibious and the Army Rangers of North Africa and the European campaigns who were amphibious capable and were trained by U.S. Marines. Because of interservice rivalry and Gen. Esienhower didn't want U.S. Marines winning all of the glory in Europe like they did during WW l, the Army Rangers performed the missions of U.S. Marines against the war with Germany. Re: WW ll Marine Raiders, how many of today's Marines or Army soldiers can cover 7 miles an hour on a force march ? The 5th Marines made military history when the entire regiment conducted a force march from 29 Palms to the sea at Camp Pendleton, 150 miles in five days. I wonder how many days the Marine Raiders could have done the same force march ? Four days ??? Keeping to Corps traditions.
Let's go to the source. According to this article, Mushroom is correct, the Rangers pre-date the Revolutionary War. Rangers Heritage - http://www.army.mil/ranger/heritage.html Of course today Army Rangers comprise the 75th Ranger Regiment. My Dad served in the 75th Infantry division...not to be confused with the 75th Ranger Regiment....The 75th Div. was comprised of many replacements in WW2...young and green, thrown into the Ardennes forest with a Garand. So flash forward a few decades, my Dad would often stop and thank soldiers he would see in airports and chit chat a while. They would ask what outfit he was with and he'd say "The 75th." Right away, they figure he's a bad ass Ranger...rather than the reality of a scared 19 year old replacement infantryman.
I think it was more an issue of mission and availability. By June 1944, the Marines were hard pressed to even provide enough trained personnel for the Pacific Campaign. When the US entered the war, there were only 2 understrength Marine Divisions. By the end of the war, there were 6. The Corps simply did not have the capability to expand any more then that, all of it's resources were put into maintaining what they had, and keeping the pipeline open for replacements for the horrible losses being taken in the Pacific. I doubt if the Corps could have spared even a Regiment to assist in Europe, even if they wanted to. And trust me, if there was any WWII General who was against the Corps early on, it was General of the Army MacArthur. Legend has it that every unit in the Philippines got the Presidential Unit Citation, except for the 4th Marines. Mac is reported to have said that he did not recommend them because the marines get enough glory as it is and did not need another. But the Pacific Campaign made a real believer in him of their value. Half a decade later when planning on the Inchon and other landings in Korea, he went straight to the Corps for this force, and had the Army play back-up. Even during the Pusan Perimiter when the Army had units collapsing left and right, the Marines in theatre were used as an Emergency Reserve force, sent in to strengthen up the Army where they were suffering from bugout fever. So sorry, I find it hard to believe Ike had that kind of opinion, because I have never heard of the European theater ever being offered any significant numbers of Marines. Well, "Rangers" have come and gone, but one thing they all had in common is that they did not operate as "Regular infantry". Knowlton's Rangers (Revolutionary War) mostly did reconnisance type missions, and you also had Francis Marion (The Swamp Fox) who performed more of a guerrilla type hit and run strategy. From post-Revolutionary War to post-Civil War, most Ranger units were Dragoons. Mounted Infantry, they were light fast moving Infantry, typically used for Recon and Raiding. They were neither Infantry, nor were they Cavalry. And being a combination to a degree of both, they were quite effective for a century in the role of "Rangers". Mosby's Rangers were probably the most famous of these units in the Civil War, as was Mean's Rangers.
Should have seen it coming, cultural-Marxism revisionism. Fifth photo, check it out. But I digress, back to being historically correct. U.S. Marines barred from the June 6, 1944 landings. excerpt:
Yeah, about that...in fairness there were Army personnel as well as British troops garrisoned in Iceland during WW2. More to the point, Icelandic women....how shall I put this..."intermingled" with garrisoned troops and subsequently gave birth. These children were given the name Hansson, translated as "his" becuase the father was unknown. Most Icelanders probably are not all that fond of foreign troops on their land, though in our absence they are virtually defenseless. Crime is near to non-existent there, and what they have in terms of defense amounts to a civilian crisis team. The Icelandic police were kept busy inspecting troop quonset huts for any females who happened to sneak in undetected.
What else is there to do in Iceland except for eating fish, drinking beer and having sex with Nordic stock women ?
Off topic...last comment, and apologies to Mushroom for going so far astray from the original point of the thread. I landed there, Keflavik, Iceland, as part of an Air Force evaluation and calibration team inspecting the U.S. Naval air station navigation aids and air traffic control. USAF kept a fighter group stationed there and we were required to give a detailed report of the facilities' personnel and equipment. It was about a 48 hour turn around. It's quite desolate, and the indigenous folks are striking in their "paleness," perhaps that's not a PC term. Not really my cup of tea, but I suppose to some lonely soldier or Marine it was near irresistible. As you say, there's not much else to do in terms of recreation. Still, not cool leaving some bastard child behind to show for a good time. Gotta keep your wick dry and not mix with the locals.
The inter service rivalry goes beyond Army vs. Marines but also Navy vs. Marines. Have you ever read the "Patton Papers" ? Patton only mentions the Marine Corps three times. The first time was either during the late 1890's or early 1900's before WW l where Patton acknowledges that the Marine Corps is America's elite fighting force. Probably because the USMC had more combat experience than the Army having fought in over 150 wars and armed conflicts against foreign armies. The Constitution says that the President has to get authority from Congress to send the Army to war but not the Navy or Marines. Today we have the War Powers Act. Below is from "HyperWar" < http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ > probably the most credible source on the Army, Navy and Marine Corps during WW ll. Just government records, after action reports, etc., it's what history is written from. As you will notice a lot that is on this website archives hasn't even made it in the history books yet. Excerpt from: -> http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/Coral&Brass/index.html
I never stated that there were no Marines involved. And the ones you mention were all parts of Ship Detachments, not "Infantry Units" that were assigned to the landing. No Battalions, no Regiments (I doubt they were available anyways), just some detachments normally operating as security and secondary armaments crews aboard the ships they are posted on. And sorry but I have to agree. Throwing in forces that had not trained with the forces landing would have been a last-ditch desperation measure. The Normandy forces had trained together for months prior to the landings. Adding units that had not participated in the training and planning could have caused more problems then it solved, other then a "throw them in or die" scenario.
I missed this one. Marine Force Recon snoops and poops and if they found themselves in a fire fight, they (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up. They aren't suppose to be seen or engage the enemy. But if they screwed up and found themselves in a fire fight, they were expected to fight like Marine riflemen. Back when I first arrived in-country in 69, Force Recon was just switching over from the M-3 sub machinegun to the Car-15. The M-3 SMG wasn't the ideal weapon to engage the enemy with and the Car-15's are just civilian semi auto carbines. I've seen more than a few Vietnam War Force Recon Marines who never earned the Marines Combat Action Ribbon. Now Marine recon battalions would also snoop and poop but they would also engage the enemy to get a feeling of their strength and then didi and report what they found. But I know many 1st Recon Battalion Marines who were (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)ing that they were being used as typical Marine rifle battalions, rifle companies or rifle platoons. Kinda like what happened to the Army's Air Cav. during the Vietnam War. The air cavalry was a great concept and it worked well, being used like the horse cavalry and also being used as a blocking force in support of the regular infantry. But soon Army field grade commanders and even some generals started misusing the air cav. and using them as regular infantry. Same thing happened with the WW ll Marine Raiders, they ended up being used as Marine infantry more than conducting raids behind enemy lines or conducting commando type raids, go in accomplish the mission is and get the (*)(*)(*)(*) out.
I never said that you did. I know that you already know what rolls the Marines played on June 6th, 1944. I just thought it was funny that the Huffington Huff published a photo of what appears to be U.S. soldiers unloading a 75 MM pack howitzer from a LCVP and identifying them as U.S. Marines. I looked closely at the photo and those don't look like Marine boon dockers they are wearing and they don't look like Marine herringbone utilities either. If it were a color photo it would really be easy to tell, Marines utilities were sage green while the Army went with olive drab.
