Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Marine Corps to Cut Infantry Assaultman Job to Resource Other Roles
Military.com ^ | 1/3/2018 | Hope Hodge Seck

Posted on 01/04/2018 9:52:18 AM PST by Elderberry

The Marine Corps is doing away with its 0351 infantry assaultman military occupational specialty and phasing out the assault section of Marine rifle companies in an effort to build up communities such as cyber and electronic warfare, Military.com has learned.

Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, who confirmed planning in December while on an annual tour of deployed Marine elements around the world, said he expects the move to happen in the next three to five years as part of a slate of changes designed to help the Corps prepare for future fights.

The 0351 infantry assaultman, one of the Marine Corps' five core infantry positions, is tasked with breaching, demolition, and rocket fire against fortified positions. Assaultmen carry the MK-153 shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon, or SMAW.

But Neller said he's making changes that will ensure those roles are filled by other members of a rifle company.

Each future rifle company will have an element of combat engineers aligned with it to take on breaching and demolition duties. The engineers will carry the SMAW, but they may not be the only ones.

(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last
To: Reily

MT the magazine ?


21 posted on 01/04/2018 10:38:01 AM PST by stylin19a (Best.Election.of.All-Times.Ever.In.The.History.Of.Ever)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ

I also work in the industry & I think cyber is being emphasized at the expense of real weapons!

I am constantly being told by management, ‘put a cyber spin on it so we can get the moneys!

I am not a Luddite, but what I see is cyber being spun up as the “ultimate weapon”. No need for other weapons, we got “cyber”!


22 posted on 01/04/2018 10:40:49 AM PST by Reily
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Elderberry
"Sir, We've been spiked!"


23 posted on 01/04/2018 10:49:31 AM PST by Rebelbase (The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.-- H.L. Mencken)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: onedoug
“This is my computer, this is my gun....”

This one's for cyber warfare, and this one's for fun.

24 posted on 01/04/2018 11:15:06 AM PST by AlaskaErik (I served and protected my country for 31 years. Progressives spent that time trying to destroy it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: gunnyg

Dunno If This Will Appear here?
************************
Gunny G
++++++++++++

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=parris+island+sign+done+its+job&t=hf&atb=v80-1__&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.tinypic.com%2F1t6bvb.jpg


25 posted on 01/04/2018 11:24:10 AM PST by gunnyg ("A Constitution changed from Freedom, can never be restored; Liberty, once lost, is lost forever...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ
In the age of muskets you are recommending we stick with only tried and true spears.

Not at all.

Anything that acts as a force multiplier is good stuff.

Use them while you got them.

But when machines and tech aids fail, break, act up, or get destroyed (and they do) it all comes down to the guys on the ground slogging through the mud and blood.

So just as it doesn't make sense to go to battle without the latest technical tools, it doesn't make sense to eliminate their back up, which is still the grunt on the ground.


26 posted on 01/04/2018 11:44:56 AM PST by Vlad The Inhaler (United We Stand, Divided We Fall. Remember That Diversity Is The Opposite Of Unity.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: buwaya
Most of the killing in modern war, since 1914, was done by the artillery after all. And later air. Even in Guadalcanal and Vietnam.
I read a very interesting account of the Battle of Guadalcanal - from the POV of the Navy.
Neptune’s Inferno:
The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
by James D. Hornfischer

It turns out that the Navy was providing all the support it could to the Marines on Guadalcanal, but they were hampered by shortage of resources and a very serious technological problem. The Japanese didn’t have radar, but they did have what they referred to as "Sanso gyorai” - the "oxygen torpedo.” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo

In daylight, the US had air superiority over the vicinity of Guadalcanal, of course, and at night the Japanese were sometimes able to bombard Guadalcanal. Both navies faced fuel constraints which limited what ships could be sailed what distances, when. The USN had a battleship available for use at that time and place, but it was such a fuel hog that they never actually used it. The naval battle was basically between destroyers and cruisers - and Japanese "oxygen torpedoes” were a signal advantage in that context. Just as with Japanese ignorance of radar, American commanders had difficulty getting their heads wrapped around the idea that Japanese topedoes had half an order of magnitude better propulsion energy than their own torpedoes had.

Historically torpedoes were propelled by compressed air. But when you do that, of course, the temperature in the air cannister drops with the pressure - and that compounds the temperature drop, drastically reducing the output energy. The solution was to burn fuel in the air coming from the air tank to raise the pressure. But even that is far below what is practical. You could burn five times more fuel in pure oxygen than you could in compressed air. The result would be five times as much energy available, neglecting the space you would have to take away from oxidizer propellant to quintupple the amount of liquid fuel you would need. The upshot would be that the Japanese torpedo probably had nearly four times as much energy, allowing it to go twice as fast for about the same duration of run time. So basically the effective range of the oxygen torpedo might be about twice that of an American WWII torpedo.
The upshot was a balance of differing advantages of the combatants which prevented the losing combatant from knowing when to quit throwing good money after bad. And the US Navy suffered even more casualties in the Guadalcanal campaign than the US Marines did.

Quite the interesting story. At that time, BTW, USN radar was primitive in lacking IFF. And was only on cruisers.

And Japanese destroyers could go faster than PT boats, and sometimes chased them down and rammed them.


27 posted on 01/04/2018 11:56:28 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (Presses can be 'associated,' or presses can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: relictele
My MOS in the Corps was Tactical Electronic Warfare Avionics Technician and that was
over 30 years ago so the Corps has been in this lane for quite some time now...
28 posted on 01/04/2018 12:29:40 PM PST by major_gaff (University of Parris Island, Class of '84)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ

I would have expected the slots to come from the signal corps


29 posted on 01/04/2018 12:32:55 PM PST by xzins (Retired US Army chaplain. Support our troops by praying for their victory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Vlad The Inhaler

Right you are. Wars are still won or lost by boots on the ground. Always have been, always will be. Regardless of MOS, a soldier is always an ‘11 Bravo’ first.


30 posted on 01/04/2018 12:48:41 PM PST by beelzepug (The permanent political class that runs this country is...the great(est) danger we face)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Vlad The Inhaler
"When all the machines and tech toys are broken and the cyber techs are sitting in front of blue screens..."

Exactly. We are STILL CURRENTLY in a war against 7th Century barbarians which witnessed a cavalry charge and bayonet charge in Afghanistan while Iraq and Syria are urban hellholes. The battlefield thus far has not seen a great advantage due to technology and without fighting and holding ground by infantry, wars become as protracted as the silly "War on Terror".

31 posted on 01/04/2018 12:53:32 PM PST by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ

“The Marines need this stuff more than they need a low tech bazooka.”

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess you have never been in a rifle company.


32 posted on 01/04/2018 1:21:02 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion

True.

Later in the Guadalcanal campaign both sides brought in battleships.


33 posted on 01/04/2018 1:21:19 PM PST by buwaya
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Also, Japanese lookouts had astonishing night vision. They trained for it, ate to preserve it, and kept lookouts in dark conditions during the day.

Their lookout always saw our ships before our lookouts could see them. They were orders of magnitude better than us there. Radar saved the day for us.


34 posted on 01/04/2018 1:27:40 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

Forget Marine Assault Infantry Men and replace them with elements of Global Warming Experts (GWEs) to mitigate environmental damage, immediately, in the battlespace, before things can get toooo bad.


35 posted on 01/04/2018 1:31:05 PM PST by ichabod1 (White Male)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

Hard to call Mattis an Obama general when he fired him without even the common courtesy of a reach around (erm... phone call.)


36 posted on 01/04/2018 1:33:05 PM PST by ichabod1 (White Male)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ

Well, if the kind of cyber we’re talking is intel and attack drones, breaching robots and the like, that’s a very different matter. That would suggest they are upgrading the Assault Man into a Combat Engineer role. That seems to be what I’m reading.


37 posted on 01/04/2018 1:41:23 PM PST by ichabod1 (White Male)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ
These days Cyber and Electronic warfare happen on the battle field direction with the soldiers. If you can jam their signals at close range you get bombs and drones all over you. The Marines need this stuff more than they need a low tech bazooka.

My nephew graduated from Marine bootcamp (Parris Island) this past September and this is his specialty.

38 posted on 01/04/2018 3:03:17 PM PST by PJ-Comix ("Match me, Sidney.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

“The Marines need this stuff more than they need a low tech bazooka.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess you have never been in a rifle company.”

I am going to go out on a limb and say you have no idea what ‘stuff’ I am talking about. Go find someone who as been recently deployed and on patrol and ask them to chose between a bazooka and a portable IED jammer. Go ahead. I will wait.


39 posted on 01/04/2018 4:54:39 PM PST by TalonDJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: ichabod1

“That would suggest they are upgrading the Assault Man into a Combat Engineer role. That seems to be what I’m reading.”

That is how I read it.
Some here seem to think it means they are replacing infantry with some punk in a closet with a PC. Which is not at all how I read it.


40 posted on 01/04/2018 4:55:43 PM PST by TalonDJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson