Say hello to the Marine Corps' newest....

[regexcellent]

Mk 19 essentially counts for no firepower unless you got one of the ones made by God Himself that actually works, and doesn't jam on every second round or go runaway and shoot off the whole belt at once on you. And when it does work it spews hot cum-like grease in your face, but I guess marines are used to that.

[Al B. Sure!]

Mk 19 essentially counts for no firepower unless you got one of the ones made by God Himself that actually works, and doesn't jam on every second round or go runaway and shoot off the whole belt at once on you. And when it does work it spews hot cum-like grease in your face, but I guess marines are used to that.

Quantico must have the ones manufactured by God Himself because every single Marine in my company got to get behind the row of Mk 19's and hit targets with a belt of a dozen 40mm. They worked flawlessly. Nothing you described happened.

Clearly the Army doesn't emphasize weapons maintenance like the Marine Corps does


Regexcellent, how often do Army officers wind up in different billets? It's quite common for Marine officers to be say a logistics officer commanding an engineering company, an infantry officer commanding a motor transport company, etc. They will start off in their MOS but it's often fluid once they make Captain.

[regexcellent]

I first learned about the issues with Mk. 19s from a former marine who said his company had three in Afghanistan and only one worked even partially.

I think in the Army you can get a branch detail which starts you off in one branch and then puts you in another when you reach captain, because some branches like Infantry are bottom-heavy leadership-wise while others, like Military Intelligence, are top-heavy. You will not have non-infantry officers leading infantry units, and from what I understand on the active duty side you won't be getting to lead a platoon or be getting command time as an infantry officer unless you successfully complete Ranger school. You will be stuck in staff, in one of the S shops in BN/BDE HQ. The Army Reserves have no infantry units so that's a non-item there and in the National Guard your state has to put up the money to send you to Ranger and generally isn't inclined to. This may vary by state; I have heard that in Texas for instance the National Guard gets plenty of funding and sends people to schools all the time.

Also, once you hit major, if you stay in that long I suppose, you can get a functional area and go somewhere totally different but none of those are combat arms.

Clarification: when you get a branch detail I believe you qualify for the branch you're detailing to first, so if you're an MI officer detailing to Infantry you go through IOBC and Ranger school and then later become an MI officer when you hit captain, after getting your platoon time and so on and so forth.

[Sava]

And when it does work it spews hot cum-like grease in your face

You know from experience?

[Hauldren Collider]

AAV's come with a Mk 19 and M2. Good amount of firepower. Plus the low profile in the water makes it hard to hit.

However, we were supposed to replace the AAV's with the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle which would have had more armor but that got canned.

The things apparently move at about 9 or 10 miles an hour. They really can't be that hard to hit. Get some motorboats with RPGs and nail the suckers.

[Sava]

It's hard to tell if you are trolling or serious.

[-Jrabbit]

Reg seems to feel a need to prove his bona fides, and apparently service branch sniping is the way to go in his world.

Some of it reads like gamers arguing console/game design. Good stuff.

[Al B. Sure!]

Reg seems to feel a need to prove his bona fides, and apparently service branch sniping is the way to go in his world.

Of course it is the way to go in his world of Army ROTC.

We all know what the American people know of the Marines vis a vis some of the other service branches. They know what our training is like and they know that we are harder, tougher, and meaner than the others. They know there's a certain mystique about the title Marine, the emblematic USMC, the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, the motto Semper Fidelis, and the warcry 'oorah'!

There's a reason for that distinction and that mystique and it lies in the way that Marines are made. We don't tell our lawyers and pilots to sit back while the ground guys get their hands dirty. They are Marines, we are all Marines, and we must be made and tempered in that same forge, whether a supply clerk, an attorney, or a rifleman. If all Marines did not share that same forge, we would not be the Marine Corps that America knows us, wants us, and demands us to be.

To quote T. R. Fehrenbach, an Army officer who served in Korea but wrote two books on the Marines and none on his branch,

"Marine human material was not one whit better than that of the human society from which it came. But it had been hammered into form in a different forge, hardened with a different fire. The Marines were the closest thing to legions the nation had. They would follow their colors from the shores of home to the seacoast of Bohemia, and fight well at either place"

"A Marine Corps officer was still an officer, and a sergeant behaved the way good sergeants had behaved since the times of Caesar, expecting no nonsense, allowing none. And Marine leaders had never lost sight of their primary- their only- mission, which was to fight."

[Elok]

Actually, when I think "elite soldier," I tend to think of Navy SEALs. Or Green Berets, or something. Marines are more enthusiastic, and I guess the training is harsher and stuff, but you're not the American Sardaukar.

[The Mad Monk]

Are they the American Jem'Hadar?

[Elok]

They're the American Colonial Marines. And Al is Hudson.

EDIT: Wait, he's an officer, so maybe he's Gorman? I don't know.

[regexcellent]

Reg seems to feel a need to prove his bona fides, and apparently service branch sniping is the way to go in his world.

Some of it reads like gamers arguing console/game design. Good stuff.

Observing that the marines do something dumb as part of stupid organizational culture isn't inter-service sniping, it's just observation. If I wanted to do inter-service sniping I could comment on how the marines are the biggest source of ridiculous redundancy in the entire US military and that they don't do anything that any other service doesn't already do*, nor do they do anything better than anyone else in any measurable way, while simultaneously sucking up huge amounts of budget acquiring expensive technology to solve problems nobody outside of a USMC uniform has ever or would ever ask. Problems that don't actually exist in the real world, but represent a desire on the part of marine corps brass to re-live Iwo Jima (much like the 82nd Airborne division exists so that the army can pretend it might someday relive Normandy, and also distribute jump pay to lots of people).

Oh, and the marines were willing to let members of the other branches die so that they could protect their unique camouflage pattern (even though it was actually just copied from the Canadians). But that is slated to go away by 2017 since they will be forced to adopt the same pattern as everyone else.

*I'm sure anyone could learn how to do amphibious assault with a short class on how to get on a boat until it's time to get off the boat, after all that's what happened in the largest amphibious operation we've ever conducted (which involved no marines).

I can't wait until Alby's first AT when his whole uber-moto notion of the USMC/US military gets crushed like an egg under a train engine.

BTW I don't have a high opinion of the Army either, in fact I am leaving Army ROTC very shortly cause staying in would delay my graduation. Maybe I'll do OCS maybe not.

[Captain ******* Kirk]

Actually, when I think "elite soldier," I tend to think of Navy SEALs. Or Green Berets, or something. Marines are more enthusiastic, and I guess the training is harsher and stuff, but you're not the American Sardaukar.

The Marines could be the American Sardaukar, because truly elite soldiers like the SEALs could still be the American Fremen.

The real reason that the Marines can't be Sardaukar is that their stupid haircuts make it impossible to conceal shigawire garrotes.

[Captain ******* Kirk]

Reg is also right about the Marines being the biggest source of unnecessary redundancy in the American military. Surprised he made that point, as the Army is the biggest source of stupidity in the American military.

[regexcellent]

Reg is also right about the Marines being the biggest source of unnecessary redundancy in the American military. Surprised he made that point, as the Army is the biggest source of stupidity in the American military.

The Army isn't buying F-35s.