Marines WW2

L

Lone_Predator

Veteran XX
Hope this isn't a terribly stupid question but here it goes

Why did the US Army primarily operate in Europe and US Marines do mostly Asia? I always kind of wondered why Army Infantry and Rangers landed at Utah and Omaha and not Marines? Did the Marines have any involvement in the landings for that matter?

From what I found on Wikipedia the British use infantry and commandos too, and not their marines, at the landings, as did us Canadians but we don't have Marines like the US and British.
 
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The Marines did the Pacific only, with the exception of Marine Sharpshooters during D-Day.

Army was in both places, because the Army doesn't suck a boat load of cock like the Marine Corps does.

Edit: Any fag that gets technical and says the Marine garrison in Iceland contributed to the European Theater will get a cunt punch.
 
Marines are better trained, at Normandy we were using overwhelming suppressive fire aka chucking as many people at the beach as we could and the Army has the expendable soldiers

and the Army was in the pacific, I think the initial invasion on Iwo Jima was all army and they kept getting killed and the Marines moved in and took over their half of the island way faster than the Army
 
slogg said:
Marines are better trained, at Normandy we were using overwhelming suppressive fire aka chucking as many people at the beach as we could and the Army has the expendable soldiers

and the Army was in the pacific, I think the initial invasion on Iwo Jima was all army and they kept getting killed and the Marines moved in and took over their half of the island way faster than the Army
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Vice versa with the Iwo Jima stuff. The Army would usually occupy the islands in the Pacific, the Marines would capture it, secure it and then hand it over (usually).
 
slogg said:
Marines are better trained, at Normandy we were using overwhelming suppressive fire aka chucking as many people at the beach as we could and the Army has the expendable soldiers
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Yes but the US, Britain and Canada also all used large number of commandos/rangers too..
 
I guess I am just wondering WHY Marines weren't in Europe? Were their numbers to small?

Also whats that about Marine sharpshooters?

I have posted threads before on this partly because maybe I don't understand why the US has the Army and Marines and seems to use them in the same way anyways?
 
Most likely it was numbers. The Marines were never that large compared to the Army and given the fact that they had a large amount of Sea-borne invasion experience, why send them to Europe when they have the entire Pacific to conquer. At the end of the day, the Army did the job it was tasked, so the Marines weren't needed.

There were Marine snipers on some of the boats shooting insane distances making kills from the boats to the Germans on the Atlantic Wall.
 
Maybe because Marines are an integral part of the Navy and Navy obviously operated heavily in the pacific?

I've never thought about this before. Just guessing.
 
HomeSlice said:
Vice versa with the Iwo Jima stuff. The Army would usually occupy the islands in the Pacific, the Marines would capture it, secure it and then hand it over (usually).
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ah i see, yeah I was just remember some history channel show I had seen about Iwo Jima but couldn't recall all the facts
 
slogg said:
ah i see, yeah I was just remember some history channel show I had seen about Iwo Jima but couldn't recall all the facts
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Aye. The Army had combat troops on Guadalcanal and Okinawa, The Philippines and in Burma area... but the rest were mostly support/occupation troops meant to set up bases.
 
HomeSlice said:
There were Marine snipers on some of the boats shooting insane distances making kills from the boats to the Germans on the Atlantic Wall.
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That is really sweet.

I'm still surprised though that for a landing of that size that the Marines weren't included. I can't be the only one thinking that.

The navy primarily operated in the Pacific, I understand, but they still had a heavy influence in the Atlantic. Even Canada ended up having the third largest navy in the world after WW2 because of the amount of ships needed in the Atlantic.
 
Lone_Predator said:
That is really sweet.

I'm still surprised though that for a landing of that size that the Marines weren't included. I can't be the only one thinking that.

The navy primarily operated in the Pacific, I understand, but they still had a heavy influence in the Atlantic. Even Canada ended up having the third largest navy in the world after WW2 because of the amount of ships needed in the Atlantic.
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because Marines were smaller and on top of that the Army had pulled off 2 previous major amphibious assaults during Operation Torch (Invasion of North Africa) and Operation Avalanche (Invasion of Italy) previously, so experience in the matter of major amphibious assaults amongst several fronts and beachheads went to the army, while the marines were more adapt to assaulting one front at a time due to their size. Plus, it would just be a pain to have marines land, secure a beachhead then have them swap out with an army unit when you want to constantly advance a front. Marines aren't geared for sustained operations, even today.. thats why for the majority of OIF they've only had 6-9 month deployments, with a rare few units having 12 month deployments while the army has always been at least a 12 month deployment schedule and is now on a 15-18 month deployment schedule for most units.
 
Lone_Predator said:
That is really sweet.

I'm still surprised though that for a landing of that size that the Marines weren't included. I can't be the only one thinking that.

The navy primarily operated in the Pacific, I understand, but they still had a heavy influence in the Atlantic. Even Canada ended up having the third largest navy in the world after WW2 because of the amount of ships needed in the Atlantic.
Click to expand...

Surprised, you may be, but they simply weren't needed.

The Navy in the Atlantic was a bit different, tasked with Sub hunting/killing, compared to the Navy in the Pacific. The Marines just were not needed.
 
Well if we want to include all the allies, Russia used the few marines they had (Naval Infantry?) at Sevastapol, and I'm guessing other ports like Leningrad or Vladivostok (asia, so it doesnt count), although mostly around the Black Sea if anywhere.
 
I hope I don't seem like a jackass for asking this and I appreciate the information guys.

Is that true about Marines having 6-9 month deployments / Army 12+ month deployments? I ask this as my brother is in the Canadian Armed Forces, hes deploying to Afghanistan in a few months for a 6 month tour. Some of his friends not in infantry are going for 9 months.

edit to homeslice: There were British Army Commandos and apparently also British Marine Commandos which was new
 
In this modern age, deployments mean nothing. Everyone I know that has been deployed was kept past their date when they were supposed to leave, and a good number have been sent back more then once.
 
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