We have a Ranger Battalions because they do a certain mission very very well and the USMC has not had great success with the same mission. Can you say "Mayaguez incident"? Ranger Batts have proven their usefulness time and time again.Originally Posted by slapout9
Reed
Not a solid comparison, since the Ranger Battalions didn't exist at that time. Rangers clearly do some things quite well, but there are also occasions when they (like any unit) are committed to tasks they aren't suited for.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
I have never seen anything a Ranger Battalion does that the 82nd didn't used to do before we had Ranger Battalions and still could do. It is the Ranger training that is important and should be spread through all Infantry units like it used to be.
Are you saying the Ranagers could have handled the Mayaguez incident any better?
The Marines would probably say......can you say "Black Hawk down!"
No tab, badge or brand makes a man or unit the end all, be all for every situation. That is why we have a mix of types of units, each with its own unique advantages and disadvantages for a savvy commander to mix and match as necessary for best effect.
The problem of the conflicts of recent years is that they came to call for a lot of a couple different types of activity, and units all started abandoning their respective bases of specialization and expertise to fall in on some degree of competence on those common themes.
Pick your metaphor. From a sophisticated tool box into a bag of hammers; or from a symphony orchestra into a brass band. May meet the current requirement (as defined), but is not a good long-term solution.
Time for everyone to get back to their core competencies. Then, it is time to balance the relative size of each of those capacities to challenges of the modern era. We have been a military in conflict, but we are a nation at peace. Time to re-size and re-focus for the real challenges that are out there, not for the noises we hear in the dark.
For conventional ground forces this probably means we need a lot less, with most warfighting capacity relegated to the National Guard, and a smaller, more expeditionary capacity retained in the active component. Marines should pick up the lion-share of expeditionary missions as they invoke far less strategic risk for the nation when they are employed. SOF also provides an effective peacetime engagement tool, from building relationships and cultural understanding in critical locations, to taking out point targets on rare occasion. The Navy is the Navy. We are a maritime nation. Nuff said. The air force? Born of the Cold War we don't really have a model for what to do with these guys in the real world. We need to figure that out. They play a critical part of our deterrence mission, as well as our ability to move forces quickly and secure the airspace of critical locations for critical periods of time (not all air space all the time as the A2AD crowd seem to imply).
But DoD needs to take this serious. It is not our job to be as big as possible and do our job, it is our job to be as small as possible and do our job.
Last edited by Bob's World; 09-04-2012 at 09:10 PM.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
In the end the value of a soldier is what he can "do to his enemy." So Bob..... what can a Ranger do to the enemy that a Regular Soldier or Marine can not do?
The Marine Corps disbanded the Raiders because they had a General staff that asked that question and in the end they told the Raiders that their is nothing you can teach the raiders that you shouldn't be teaching to the rest of the Marine Corps. It's the same way with the Rangers, it is to costly and unnecessary duplication. The Ranger skills should be taught as widely as possible through the entire Infantry just like it used to be.
Rangers, 82nd, Marines all work various aspects of the same mission set. You don't just have one screwdriver in your toolbox, nor does one just put trumpets in their brass section. Can you get by with just one flavor? Sure, but it will sometimes be the inappropriate tool for the job, and the job will take longer or be messier because of it.
Our problem is not that we have Ranger Battalions, I think they provide a valuable option to senior leaders. A bigger problem is how we have morphed Ranger Battalions and tailored them to the job of hunting HVTs From highly effective raiders of battalion-sized targets we have turned them into a vast pool of squad/platoon-sized assassins and kidnappers. Not sure we need an entire regiment dedicated to that latter mission as we move forward.
So, to my point, we need to re-balance and right-size the force, and we need to make it as small and efficient as possible. Our geostrategic place on the planet allows us a luxury of being able to assume risks that other nations cannot. We need to leverage that once again.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
They say it, but the reality has shown this to be wrong. You simply can't be good at everything all the time. If the Raiders were such a bad idea, why has USMC currently embraced MARSOC? Look at some of Ken Whites arguments about what the military expects of officers and why it is unrealistic, for it is applicable to units as well. None of this is meant as a dig on Marines, they have an aggresive warfighting culture and some very good infantry tactics and better combined arms doctrine then the Army, but there decision to have no (few) "elite" Marines since all Marines are "elite", was a poor choice IMNSHO.
Reed
Greenbacks, maybe?
Is there some way in which MARSOC is not redundant within USSOCOM? Mine is a non-rhetorical question—I am not clear on what they do.
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)
Each service has their 'part' of USSOCOM. So you have MARSOC as the Marine part of it, ARSOC as the Army part of it, etc.
USSOCOM is the overall HQ, but under that, each branch has a piece.
Brant
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Nothing I said was meant to be a dig at the Rangers either. What I am saying is when the next election happens and it dosen't really matter which side wins there is going to be some major cuts to certain units because of what is considered to be duplication. You are going to see the Harvard Business School approach used on the military and The Army and the Marines are likley to get cut the worst and any sort of duplication will land right in the middle of their sites.
I was thinking about the future of the Corps and the Marine Special Operations Battalions - it seems to me that the MSOB organization with some CS and CSS attachments would be ideally suited to be a smaller MEU(SOC). You could place this organization on one LPD-17 with a LCS and DD-51 in support. Or a combination of a MSOB and regular rifle battalion. Just trying to think outside the box.
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