Posted on 04/04/2016 10:08:45 AM PDT by C19fan
The United States Navy is paradoxically the most traditional and innovative of America’s armed services. It is also by far and away the most diverse in terms of missions and capabilities. In addition to its fleet of cutting-edge surface ships and submarines, the Navy possesses its own ground force—the Marines—and an air force, both land and carrier-based, which has greater strike capability than the air forces of most developed nations. The Navy’s supercarrier battle groups function as mobile military cities, extending American power and influence across the entire globe.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
You could fold all the other service’s missions into the US Navy.
Former CO of mine once said (at a tri-service convention)..”Navy has Sea Air and Land covered, so the rest of you need to just stay the hell outta the way!”
(and he was right! :-)
And all the compromising they’ve done since Tailhook.
No, the navy does not “have its own land force, the Marines”. The Marines are separate and answer only to marine officers up to the joint Chiefs of staff. The commandant answers to the civilian Secretary of the Navy.
Marine units are not under the command of navy officers, except for joint commands.
By that standard, Navy forces are sometimes under the command of USAF or USA officers.
The Navy is the most prominent branch of the military in America because America has been, and always will be, a naval power. I believe that over time the Navy will be the one spearheading our quest for space, not the useless dandies it in the Air Force.
Visit the Marine Corp museum in Quantico Va. You could walk around that place for hours and not know that the USA even had Navy.
A glance at a globe supports what you said. Two great oceans, the Pacific and Atlantic, on both sides of us. Any attempt to defeat and take over America by forces abroad, will have to come by way of the sea. A global map proves the Navy is America’s first line of defense.
I recall reading an article years ago where a senior Marine (4 star type one each) wrote that there was no real competition between the Army and the Marine Corps for mission because the Marine Corps is a battle winner while the Army is a war winner.
I took the general to mean that the Marine Corps is historically an assault force to be used primarily for short periods of very intense combat and then to be withdrawn to rest, regroup and refit. Given that operational reality, the Marine Corps has, shall we say, a certain “attitude” about how it postures its force structure, equips and trains those forces, and a very deep commitment to mission success regardless of casualties. (Well, at least it did while I was in and I’m pretty certain it still does.)
By contrast, the Army has to have the size, force structure, and in-depth logistics needed to sustain combat operations of widely varying intensity over long periods of time and it must supply forces for a multitude of highly varying missions in widespread locations.
There is certainly mission overlap (especially the part about closing with and destroying the enemy with fire and close combat) but the breadth of mission responsibilities is a lot larger than for the Marine Corps.
Once you shift focus in that way, a lot of difference in the size, composition, capacities, and institutional attitudes between the two forces makes sense.
You could assign Army missions to the Navy but you would soon find the Navy building another Army-like force to perform them. Or the Marine Corps would morph into something that, due to its sheer size and wide mission set, wasn’t quite the Marine Corps any more.
That would be Constitutionally sound, since the Navy is to be provided and maintained, while the Army is to be "raised" and appropriated money, but for no longer than two years at a time.
The very word “Marine” defeats your argument. The word seems to have something to do with the sea. likewise, the Merchant Marines.
The origin of the Marines traces back to the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines. Check out the Horatio Hornblower series on youtube. they depict the Marines, dressed out in red, as sea soldiers, always operating in conjunction with the Royal Navy.
Whether US sailors and marines like it or not, the US Navy and Marine Corp tradition derives from the British Navy and Marines. Where does the color of US Navy (blue) and Marines (red) uniforms come from, but the Brits? Along with a great many other traditions.
It is hard to find the four letters - NAVY anywhere in that museum. Laughable.
As long as you call yourselves “Marines” you are going to have that connection. Perhaps you should just call yourself “soldiers” like the Army, not “Marines.”
Since your museum depicts only Army-like ground warfare, distancing themselves from the Navy and the sea, maybe the Marines at Quantico ought to just go ahead and join the Army. They’d be glad to have you.
You are correct, that was the beginning to where we are today with the homosexual/transgender social justice warriors ensuring that their agenda is more important than readiness and capability. Now we have female trigger pullers, the Marines are setting up commissars for the required reeducation of all those uninformed dolts, no chance of bad stuff happening with this. Tailhook guys from that convention should be real proud of what they ultimately brought to all of the services.
The first three incorporate the traditional tripartite service branches of Army, Navy, and Air Force, with the PLA Rocket Force dealing with conventional and strategic ballistic missiles, while the PLA Strategic Support Force seems to be a service directed at hi-tech and cyber warfare.
It seems that the PLA Rocket Force and PLA Strategic Support Force were established because the Chinese leadership wanted new, specialized services run by people they controlled and had confidence in. More fundamentally, different arenas of conflict inevitably call for different commands and suitable weapons, skills, and specialties.
Indeed.
The Navy is QRF, powerful and fast, but when it comes to heavy sustained operations, need Air Force or Army.
Very good posting about the differences between the USA and USMC.
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