Hypothetical: Marine Corps Infantry vs. Army Infantry

[Eurodriver]

Full disclosure: I am active duty USMC

This morning as my platoon ran on our morning PT run and passed an Army unit at their stopping point (our half way point) I began to wonder...

Suppose you took a run of the mill USMC infantry battalion (we'll say...1st Bn 3rd Mar [1/3]) and a run of the mill Army infantry battalion of equal strength (~1000 soldiers, no armor, etc) and put them head to head on equal ground...who would come out on top?

No helos, no arty, no armor. Straight infantry vs infantry. Equal numbers.

Again, I'm biased. But I think the answer would be that at worst they would come out as a draw (both sides being evenly destroyed) or the USMC would inch by - here's why:

Leaving aside stricter marksmanship qualification, physical fitness requirements etc, From what I've seen, the Marine Corps has a better hold on the "Strategic Corporal" concept. Start taking out Marine Corps leadership and you will always find someone to step up and lead Marines. I just don't see that in the Army. It seems as if all PFCs, SPCs, Sgts are on the same "playing field" and there would be dissention and disagreement. Whereas in the Marines, all of the Sergeants already know who the senior man is. Same goes for the corporals and lance corporals. The thought of an E1 in the Army listening to an E2 is pretty crazy. But take a boot E1 private straight out of ITB and he will be taking orders from an E2 PFC and calling him "PFC". The army seems to start out at E3 (PFC). I mean hell, I have friends in the Army who are sergeants and they tell PFCs to do something and the PFC has a "profile" and says "Nah, I just don't feel like doing it today Sgt I got a profile for that". Sergeant's hands are tied. In the USMC that Lance Corporal would've already had that shit done.

The equipment is all the same. There is no advantage with body armor, weaponry, ammunition, etc. It all comes down to mindset and I think the Marines have it down.

Thoughts?

What about bigger units? The equivalent army units of a Regiment (Brigade) and a Division or even a MEF vs the USMC equivalent?

My intent with this thread is to compare leadership styles, combat tactics, and general military doctrine between the USA and USMC. Not start a pissing match consisting of "Well the Army is a bunch of fatasses" and "The USMC is a bunch of stupid idiots"

[kry226]

Full disclosure: I am active Army, former infantry. I agree with your ROE for the comparison. No peeing contest here, we're all on the same team. But be careful, it's still an apples/oranges comparison.

Being Army-biased, I call it the other way. From my experience, we will utilize better tactics (the difference based on our mission sets; you guys secure foothold, we occupy).

I am not a Marine tactician, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but your tactics seem to be a little too much "up the middle", or "into the breach" if you will, and it seems like we would maneuver better in order to take advantage of support-by-fire, etc.

Actually, I think only those who have been in both types of units are even remotely qualified to make these conjectures. But it's fun to jaw-jack around, huh?


ETA, I think the decade of war has taken its toll on the junior leadership (senior too), and our youth culture has had a drastic affect too. Pre-9/11, it was different. When I was enlisted back in the 90s, I was absolutely terrified of SGT/E5s. The least of my worries were the platoon sergeant or squad leader. Keep that mofo SGT away from me. As a private today, I wouldn't be worried about the SGT all up in my grill as much.

I think we're headed back in the right direction again, but it's going to take a while.

[eodinert]

The army could wear PT belts, rendering any tactical advantage of the Marine Corp null and void.

[chuckman]

It has been my experience, sample size 'me', of being a corpsman with FMF and having participated in a bunch of 'joint ops', that the Marines tend to be more fluid and adaptable, and younger/lower ranked Marines appear to make more leadership decisions. My one cent. That said, some of the army units I have seen would charge hell with a water hose...a bunch of warriors. I do not know Army doctrine so I can't venture to guess why any differences.

[Army Chief]

While there are surely cultural differences to account for, one of the things that makes it difficult to respond to the question without caveats is the fact that the Army has so many specific flavors of Infantrymen. Light, Heavy/Mech, Airborne, Rangers ... each has their own subculture and unique way of approaching the mission.

What you describe in the Marines with respect to mentality, leadership and initiative is also standard fare for Airborne (and certainly Ranger) units. Taken across the Army as a whole, these same characteristics are very often present in regular line formations as well, though much can admittedly depend upon the specific unit, the setting and the time. Within the Corps, my sense it that this is more of a default setting right out of boot.

If you think about it, that makes a certain amount of sense, as the typical Marine recruit is often responding to the message that the Corps is in the business of forging warriors, whereas a lot of would-be Army grunts are just drawn to the idea of doing their part for the nation while getting to run around in the woods with machineguns. There is more to it, of course, but I think that many of the traits you've mentioned are learned with time and experience in the Army, rather than hot-stamped on every E1s soul in training. I went through Army Infantry Basic and AIT in my teens, and came away from it with an extremely-disciplined and aggressive mindset, but a lot of that was admittedly ready for shaping long before I ever got there.

Not to dodge the question, but being a 30-year Army guy who has had the pleasure of working extensively with riflemen of both services, I'm inclined to say "who cares?" As an aviator who spent most of his career in assault units, I have a special love and respect for both of them. Great Americans, stepping into the breach to do a hard job with honor in an increasingly complex world. If anything, the wars we've been engaged in over the past decade have cemented a new cross-service kinship for all of us, and to me, that counts for a lot more than any of our traditional meat-measuring contests.

You don't really want to attack a US Army rifle squad, because they are going to blast you back into the Stone Age with every rifle, machinegun, pistol, grenade and MRE spoon that they can lay their hands on.

You wouldn't really want to attack a Leatherneck rifle squad, either, because those crazies would just as likely drop their rifles and come after you with KA-BARs, just to make the point.

Either way, we win. And that suits me just fine.

AC

[kry226]

While there are surely cultural differences to account for, one of the things that makes it difficult to respond to the question without caveats is the fact that the Army has so many specific flavors of Infantrymen. Light, Heavy/Mech, Airborne, Rangers ... each has their own subculture and unique way of approaching the mission.

What you describe in the Marines with respect to mentality, leadership and initiative is also standard fare for Airborne (and certainly Ranger) units. Taken across the Army as a whole, these same characteristics are very often present in regular line formations as well, though much can admittedly depend upon the specific unit, the setting and the time. Within the Corps, my sense it that this is more of a default setting right out of boot.

If you think about it, that makes a certain amount of sense, as the typical Marine recruit is often responding to the message that the Corps is in the business of forging warriors, whereas a lot of would-be Army grunts are just drawn to the idea of doing their part for the nation while getting to run around in the woods with machineguns. There is more to it, of course, but I think that many of the traits you've mentioned are learned with time and experience in the Army, rather than hot-stamped on every E1s soul in training. I went through Army Infantry Basic and AIT in my teens, and came away from it with an extremely-disciplined and aggressive mindset, but a lot of that was admittedly ready for shaping long before I ever got there.

Not to dodge the question, but being a 30-year Army guy who has had the pleasure of working extensively with riflemen of both services, I'm inclined to say "who cares?" As an aviator who spent most of his career in assault units, I have a special love and respect for both of them. Great Americans, stepping into the breach to do a hard job with honor in an increasingly complex world. If anything, the wars we've been engaged in over the past decade have cemented a new cross-service kinship for all of us, and to me, that counts for a lot more than any of our traditional meat-measuring contests.

You don't really want to attack a US Army rifle squad, because they are going to blast you back into the Stone Age with every rifle, machinegun, pistol, grenade and MRE spoon that they can lay their hands on.

You wouldn't really want to attack a Leatherneck rifle squad, either, because those crazies would just as likely drop their rifles and come after you with KA-BARs, just to make the point.

Either way, we win. And that suits me just fine.

AC

On point, as usual, good Sir.

[BrigandTwoFour]

As active duty USAF, I say someone needs to fix my air conditioning unit.


Kidding aside, I do think it is unit specific. AC is on point on that topic. My perception as someone with a job far away from "action" is that the Marines are very good at presenting an image of a hardened warrior itching to destroy the enemy. The Army presents itself as forging skill sets that may or may not include actually shooting at people. But the various outfits within the Army are better at some things than others.

Marines vs Rangers? Toss up, I'd say. Both are light and fast, capable, and motivated. Marine vs those guys assigned to guard the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle, well...I dunno...

[ABNAK]

As Chief said, discipline is tighter in Airborne units and PT is harder....I know, I was in that kind of unit for several years as well as an armored cav troop before I ETS'd. This of course was back in the 80's but I'd guess that to still hold true.

After almost 12 years of warfare you can't tell me there'd be a dimes worth of difference between Army and Marine infantry units fighting-wise. They're all seasoned warriors with junior NCO's on up having "seen the elephant".

[Koshinn]

The army could wear PT belts, rendering any tactical advantage of the Marine Corp null and void.

Winner.

PT belts basically make them immune to harm, so the Army would prevail.

I don't think a single person has ever been killed while wearing a PT belt.

As active duty USAF, I say someone needs to fix my air conditioning unit.

Someone actually does have to fix my air conditioning unit! >.<

[crusader377]

Being an Ex-Army guy I think both sides have the capability to defeat each other and this fight would come down to capability and flexibility of the leadership team in the respective battalions which is impossible to quantify.

This fight would be quite unlike anything the Army or USMC has faced in a very long time which is fighting a peer competitor without the combined arms team which is the real strength of both Army and USMC.

The most decisive factor would be how each leadership team handles the "Fog of War" and make decisions based on extremely limited information compared to what modern military leadership is used to. The other extremely important factor is how each side would adjust tactics to face a scenario which neither side has ever trained for. The typical doctrine of both Army and Marines is to use overwhelming firepower to defeat enemies and with this situation neither side would have the advantage. Also very important is how well each side uses the terrain and weather conditions which becomes even a more important factor in this type of fight vs the types of actions we have recently been fighting. Another consideration is that losses are likely to be far heavier than anything we fought and the strength of the leadership team and the cohesion of the respective battalions will be put to the test. How would each battalion fair each took lets say 100 KIA and 400 WIA and would it still be able to fight?