Listen Up Marines, We Belong at Sea

[BayonetBrant]

I spent 10 years spread across 3 different states (CA, SC, OH) and worked in a straight line tank battalion, eHSB TK BN, and a BDE HQ.
We had 1-2 "BS" drills each year: Xmas party, and usually some form of community open house to support recruiting.
We also routinely had 3-5 extra training events every year, and while the entire unit might not have been at all of them, by the end of the year, pretty much everyone in any of those units had pulled at least 2 of them.

In SC, we were in a train-up cycle for NTC (pre-9/11), and just the NTC train-up had us pulling double weekends for 6 months leading up to it, plus a 3-week AT, instead of the normal 2, on the ground at FICA. You don't want to know what the training schedules looked like for the mobilization just to support Op Noble Eagle... checking ID cards at gates resulted in 6 months of 2-3 drills per month

From CA, we deployed to Yakima one year, which added extra drills to rail-load vehicles at both ends, plus the leaders' recon, coordination meetings, etc. And another year most of us pulled double-AT b/c the BN/BDE staffs all went to FLKS for a DIV warfighter.

In Ohio, there was always at least 1 unit downrange, so we never had a full BDE to train in the field, but the ramp-up for the '08 Kuwait deployment might as well have been an active duty train-up, once they put 300+ people on full-time orders one year out and had the rest pulling double-drills, plus a total of 5 weeks of AT before they ever hit the mob station.

Three states.
10 years.
No one was wasting time painting rocks.

Can't say that about any of the 4 years I was on active duty.

[Bob's World]

The story of the USMC reserve tank company in Desert Storm is illustrative. I'll need to do a little research, but they may be credited with taking out more Iraqi armor than any other similarly sized unit in the conflict. Right place, right time, sure, but it highlights one aspect of the RC that we fail to leverage to our maximum advantage:

RC units have a stability of personnel that allows them to produce key individual and crew skills that AC units simply cannot match. Call for fire; howitzer and tank crew drills, snipers, etc. If we were smarter we would stop trying to get RC units up to AC standards on BN and BDE-level coordinated operations, and instead focus on identifying and developing these critical skills.

This is equally true in the Air guard/reserve; but due to the air mission it is recognized there. Who can tell the difference of if the C-130 they are being transported on is an active or reserve or guard crew?? You can't, other than that the Guard aircraft is likely to be better maintained, just as Guard vehicles in general are better maintained than active vehicles (an other advantage of the RC that is not well appreciated).

RC Flag officers don't help. They tend to want to prove that they are just like the AC, so they focus on building these Hollywood set units (looks real from the front, but it is all propped up BS behind the scene) instead of playing to their strengths. Sad that.

But to this thread. We need to take a hard look at every aspect of our military team and get past the fiction and the rumors and the egos and get down to the reality of what we really need, what we can afford, and then dedicating ourselves to building, fielding and employing the best possible mix. We are not doing that.

I am dealing with this today within SOCOM. Every aspect of SOF has their own narrative/legend of who they see themselves as; they have what it is they want to do; and they they have what it is they are really good at and what they need to do. Many of those things don't match up. Re-balancing forces to what you really need them to do is hard work and no one will be happy if done right. Current senior leaders, retired senior leaders, etc. All have a version in their mind that they believe is correct. We're all wrong. Let's start from there and figure this out.

No one except the American populace and the system of governance we exist to protect will be happy if we do this right. For me, that is not just good enough, for me that is the purpose of this whole little enterprise.

[BayonetBrant]

Big difference with USMC reserves vs ARNG/USAR:

USMCR units are often trained at company level, and organized to fall-in on an active duty battalion.

ARNG units are trained, organized, equipped, etc from the division level on down. Do we return to the 'roundout' concept that everyone criticized after DS/DS? Probably not, but it is a significant reason why the USMC can get guys out the door faster as reservists than the ARNG can - none of those pesky BN/BDE-level tasks to train.

Oh, and that complete and total lack of state-level MSCA missions...

[davidbfpo]

This thread has moved away from the primary mission of the USMC into questions of around the mobilisation and the competence of reserves. It is of interest to this British "armchair" observer for two reasons.

First, the current UK defence planning to have an army split into a 'Reaction' and an 'Adaptable' structure. See the UK 2020 thread for a diagram and some discussion:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=16516

It is easy to imagine in a crisis that the deployable part will need supplementing from the second echelon. In Gulf War One the UK deployed an armoured division, which required substantial reinforcement from the whole army and the reserves.

[ganulv]

[T]he current UK defence planning to have an army split into a 'Reaction' and an 'Adaptable' structure. See the UK 2020 thread for a diagram and some discussion:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=16516

Is the TA to become part of the Adaptable side, or are its personnel allocated across the two? (Or is it “its own thing” apart from the two?)