The Pointlessness of Seperate Military Services.

[TedShatner10]

With the Royal Navy essentially becoming the British Army Mk. II in landlocked Afghanistan right now, with mission creep like that occuring, I'm begining to think the idea of seperate services to be increasingly redundant pretty much since WWII.

But I can understand why the Royal Navy sailors have mostly become landlubbers in Army surplus fatigues and boots is partially to pick up after the 'real' Army who've been deployed for donkey's years and also because the Royal Navy's surface fleet has been shrunk to an almost complete irrelevance so this hollowed out martime force is branching off into land operations after it got reduced to a glorified coast guard.

But the door swings both ways since the US Army did more beach landings than the Marine Corps. while the British Army had its own fleet of support ships and patrol boats which likely outstripped the capabilities of minor foreign navies. I wonder how the concept of military service will evolve when nations get out into the solar system and beyond.

Don't get me started on the Marine Corps. which has stopped strictly being a naval assault infantry and has evolved into an oddball fourth service with its own navy, army, and air service, at least the Royal Marines have somewhat kept within their parameters most of the time.

 

[Mallory]

The US Marines are the only wholly self-contained fighting units on continuous deployment in the US military. So, from that standpoint, they continue to serve a useful purpose. Since MAU's are constantly at sea they can be deployed anywhere on a moment's notice.

 

[Canadave]

The Canadian Forces are run as a unified military force, an approach that has always made sense to me. The command structure is unified across services, and our military, though small, has always seemed well-run.

 

[TedShatner10]

The US Marines are the only wholly self-contained fighting units on continuous deployment in the US military. So, from that standpoint, they continue to serve a useful purpose. Since MAU's are constantly at sea they can be deployed anywhere on a moment's notice.

The US Military is large and strategically dispersed enough to have a duplicate seabourne army and airforce that can be deployed anywhere, but I heard in Afghanistan the US Army Rangers and Airbourne troops got annoyed at the Marines getting deployed in missions more suited to them. That strikes me as inefficient and too reminiscent of Nazi Germany's duplicate armies with the Heer, Waffen-SS, and Luftwaffe creating convoluted logistics.

I think China and Canada are more logical to have more heavily intergrated services that don't duplicate the same or similar combat roles in rivalry so much. Maybe the US Military could've evolved in a different way with the US Army supplanting the Marines in the 19th century with a Army unit known maybe as the Alligators, Army soldiers adapted to maritime combat due to a political distrust of an uppity US Navy and the US Army also could've never allowed the Air Corps. to split off and become the US Air Force, although it likely wouldn't have changed things much except streamlined the chain of command and logistics.

 

[JNG]

Don't get me started on the Marine Corps. which has stopped strictly being a naval assault infantry and has evolved into an oddball fourth service with its own navy, army, and air service

I think you could make a strong argument that it has never really been a pure naval assault infantry in the modern era. They essentially act as multi-environment shock troops and pave the way for more traditional expeditionary forces. This requires enough versatility that the oddball characteristics you describe are warranted. There are few services in the world like this.

In Trek, I never liked the supposed Starfleet Marines idea because I think it comes from people (perhaps those only familiar with the U.S. military) who have some strange expectation that there must be some analogue to the U.S. Marines in Starfleet. The U.S. Marine Corps is something of a distinctive service and there's certainly no particular reason to expect Starfleet to have a service that's very similar in role or in nomenclature.

 

[Mallory]

The US Military is large and strategically dispersed enough to have a duplicate seabourne army and airforce that can be deployed anywhere, but I heard in Afghanistan the US Army Rangers and Airbourne troops got annoyed at the Marines getting deployed in missions more suited to them. That strikes me as inefficient and too reminiscent of Nazi Germany's duplicate armies with the Heer, Waffen-SS, and Luftwaffe creating convoluted logistics.

There's some truth to the idea that the Army could fulfill the role of the Marines, except for the air power component. The Marines have their own while the Army relies on the Air Force to provide it for them.

Each MEU has everything it needs to go to war organic to it's existence. The Army has nothing like that. And the Marines are a small enough force that they draw down little (relatively speaking) in the way of funding. They draw their weapons from the other services and the Navy supplies their logistics and support (including all non-combat roles like chaplains and doctors).

Finally, the Marines are the only organization that by statute have a mission that includes "and such other duties as the President may direct". No President will ever give up a tool like that.

I'd argue that the Marines serve a vital and important part of the overall defense scheme of the US.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't know about "pointlessness" as such, but the Canadians seem to be doing all right with their single, unified military command. I wonder if that would work down here...I admit I rather envy them with their simplicity and efficiency (at least that's how a Yank civilian like me perceives it). I think we, the US, shouldn't have so many different uniformed services. And I don't just mean the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. We've got three or four others besides that! Why not pare it down a bit? Make it more efficient, simplified?

JNG: I'm not necessarily arguing that Starfleet *must* have a Marine division, but we know they have something, anyway. Those guys in black we used to see all the time on DS9. I don't know what they're called, but I highly doubt they just take a bunch of starship crewmembers, slap new uniforms on them, and send them to the front lines. I've always thought that Starfleet has *some* kind of branch that is solely for ground combat. What that branch is called, is anybody's guess. Maybe the MACOS (from Enterprise) are still around. It would explain a great many things, such as Rene Auberjonois' character from ST VI.

 

[Sephiroth]

well, with the Marines, you have, in an all volunteer military, something more akin to professional soldiers. Marine training is designed to "cull the heard" so to speak, hence the motto "the few, the proud". remember, it's the army that holds the land, it's the Marines who take it.

 

[John Picard]

Don't get me started on the Marine Corps. which has stopped strictly being a naval assault infantry and has evolved into an oddball fourth service with its own navy, army, and air service

I think you could make a strong argument that it has never really been a pure naval assault infantry in the modern era. They essentially act as multi-environment shock troops and pave the way for more traditional expeditionary forces. This requires enough versatility that the oddball characteristics you describe are warranted. There are few services in the world like this.

In Trek, I never liked the supposed Starfleet Marines idea because I think it comes from people (perhaps those only familiar with the U.S. military) who have some strange expectation that there must be some analogue to the U.S. Marines in Starfleet. The U.S. Marine Corps is something of a distinctive service and there's certainly no particular reason to expect Starfleet to have a service that's very similar in role or in nomenclature.

Ever notice, in the real world, that it takes 5,000 Marines to do what it takes 25,000 Army soldiers to do?

 

[Star Wolf]

The US Military is large and strategically dispersed enough to have a duplicate seabourne army and airforce that can be deployed anywhere, but I heard in Afghanistan the US Army Rangers and Airbourne troops got annoyed at the Marines getting deployed in missions more suited to them. That strikes me as inefficient and too reminiscent of Nazi Germany's duplicate armies with the Heer, Waffen-SS, and Luftwaffe creating convoluted logistics.

There's some truth to the idea that the Army could fulfill the role of the Marines, except for the air power component. The Marines have their own while the Army relies on the Air Force to provide it for them.

Even in airpower the correct Army unit can be used in any environment that the USMC can. Any brigade or task force of the 101st Airborne can bring more air combat power then the same sized USMC unit. And the USMCs vaunted airpower is dependent upon the USAF or the USN providing them with runways.

Each MEU has everything it needs to go to war organic to it's existence. The Army has nothing like that. And the Marines are a small enough force that they draw down little (relatively speaking) in the way of funding. They draw their weapons from the other services and the Navy supplies their logistics and support (including all non-combat roles like chaplains and doctors).

Finally, the Marines are the only organization that by statute have a mission that includes "and such other duties as the President may direct". No President will ever give up a tool like that.

I'd argue that the Marines serve a vital and important part of the overall defense scheme of the US.

I actually think its more expensive. specialized amphibious assault vehicles which can't be used in an opposed landing because modern munitions are too lethal and a squad cant be sacrificed to one hit by one guerrilla fighter. But then that amphib transport on land is inferior to a dedicated land vehicle. A separate fleet of naval fighters which left the Navy short of squadrons to man their carriers so that the specialized Marine aviators must move from their stated mission of being the 'special' force to being just another fighter squadron aboard a carrier.

The USMC survives because of tradition nothing more. Little different then the continued operation of The DEA, the ATF, the Secret Service and other federal law enforcement agencies after creation of the FBI which just duplicates the effort with another man named as director.

 

[TedShatner10]

Why shouldn't Starfleet not have its own set of marines or rangers as shock troops? Why is it just the pajama wearing crew and not dedicated warriors?