WI: Marines Take Over Airborne Mission

What if the USMC took over the airborne mission in addition to the amphibious mission? IIRC, something like this was proposed during the cold war, where the Marines would take responsibility for responding to any incidents around the globe and covering NATO's periphery, leaving the Army free to focus on the major theatres like Germany and Korea.

My biggest questions are:
  • How does this affect Marine culture and doctrine?
  • What kind of changes would there be to the organization of the Marines? If they don't have the mission of fighting major wars, might they drop the MEFs and just have MEUs or MEBs for the amphibious mission?
 
I'm not an expert on current military doctrines, but I believe that the Marines have put an emphasis on large scale Amphibious landing operations as a way to retain their relevance and their funding, that's despite most people saying that amphibious landings such as Inchon and D-Day went out the window with the spread of nuclear weapons. If the Marine Corps took over the role that Army Airmobile and Airborne divisions are supposed to have, you would probably see the Marines being more secure in their position and feeling less reliant on the USN, less money spent on Amphib landing craft/speciality might mean faster development of Helicopters and Cargo aircraft that would help out the Army/Airforce in their mission.
 
I should know better than to try to get a thread going during the first week of language school.

Anyhow, I've been thinking about how this could fit in with a Marine Corps that's more focused on the mission of being America's first responders, rather than having multiple division-sized elements maneuvering on line Desert Storm style. The Marines would focus on putting battalion task forces into the fight within 18 hours, and brigade-sized units within the following days. Their mission would be to shape the conflict in its early stages and keep the door open for Big Army to build up forces in the theater.

The Marines would also focus on putting out fires that pop up outside the main line of effort. So if the USSR rolls into the Fulda Gap, the Marines are going to make sure the Soviets don't get into Norway or Turkey. In something like Desert Shield/Storm, the Marines would be the initial force deployed to deter Saddam from pushing into KSA, but they wouldn't be breaching the berms and pushing to Kuwait City. They'd still prepare for an over-the-beach assault as in OTL, but you wouldn't see them building up for months then sending multiple divisions into the fray. That would all be the Army.
 
So basically you have a Marine Corps that still has an amphibious mission, but their main reason for existing is to be an expeditionary, rapid reaction force. The amphibious mission is one part of that, rather than the branch's core identity.

I was messing around with potential TOEs, and here's one of my ideas:
  • 3 active regiments in the MEU mission
  • 4 active regiments in the ACTF/GRF mission
  • 2 reserve regiments
A little bit of explanation: an ACTF, or Airborne Contingency Task Force, is basically the airborne version of a MEU. It's built around a marine battalion riding light-skinned vehicles. Probably something like the Polaris MRZR, or possibly JLTVs, although that would push up the number of aircraft sorties required. The battalion is supplemented by an LAV company, plus other odds and ends like a recon platoon and possibly an artillery battery. The idea is that there's three ACTFs at a time ready to deploy within 18 hours.

The GRF, or Global Reaction Force, is just a regiment-sized ACTF. They have a regiment riding light vehicles, an LAV battalion, a recon company, and an artillery battalion. They can deploy within 72 hours. Right now, this mission rotates between the 173rd and 82nd.

So the 4 airborne regiments would rotate on a 2-year cycle. They's each spend six months on the GRF mission, and 18 months generating ACTFs.

The two reserve regiments are there to bring the marine's wartime strength up to 27 battalions. They wouldn't really affect the regular expeditionary rotations, they'd just supplement the active duty if things hit the fan.

Thoughts? Is this completely crazy? I'm way outside my area of expertise here.
 
I should know better than to try to get a thread going during the first week of language school.

Anyhow, I've been thinking about how this could fit in with a Marine Corps that's more focused on the mission of being America's first responders, rather than having multiple division-sized elements maneuvering on line Desert Storm style. The Marines would focus on putting battalion task forces into the fight within 18 hours, and brigade-sized units within the following days. Their mission would be to shape the conflict in its early stages and keep the door open for Big Army to build up forces in the theater.

The Marines would also focus on putting out fires that pop up outside the main line of effort. So if the USSR rolls into the Fulda Gap, the Marines are going to make sure the Soviets don't get into Norway or Turkey. In something like Desert Shield/Storm, the Marines would be the initial force deployed to deter Saddam from pushing into KSA, but they wouldn't be breaching the berms and pushing to Kuwait City. They'd still prepare for an over-the-beach assault as in OTL, but you wouldn't see them building up for months then sending multiple divisions into the fray. That would all be the Army.

I mean, this basically was their role post-WWII...
 
I watched an online lecture recently where IIRC it was Admiral West RN (Retired) and he was talking about Naval power in the modern world and basically concluded that the US Military should basically be the Navy/Marines with the US Army being the National Guard and the Airforce being the National Air guard in the sense that the US is always going to 'project power' as no one is invading the US any time soon.

He realized that it would not be popular with the Brown and Light blue jobs

So I would take the question one step further - replace the entire US Army with the US Marines Corps and have the USAF role absorbed by the USN

Any long term large deployments would be reinforced by the National Guard and National Air Guard - with the USN and USMC acting in a 'Cavalry to the rescue' type role backing up regional allies who should carry the main burden in terms of manpower etc - but the lecturer made it very clear that where the US has made a commitment it must back up said ally if they get into trouble.
 
I should know better than to try to get a thread going during the first week of language school.

Anyhow, I've been thinking about how this could fit in with a Marine Corps that's more focused on the mission of being America's first responders,

Since my career started in 1974 the Navy/USMC has been wrestling with it's part of the first response mission. The bottom line is both the USN & Marines would have to be significantly expanded, and take over huge portions of both Army & Air Force assets, including training & support. It's simpler to follow existing doctrine (that's been around since the early 19th Century) and form joint task forces.

Adding a couple more Marine divisions might not be the biggest part of a Navy first response force. Taking over the mission of 2-3 USAF wings & base structure and adding carriers would be significantly. There's some questions about changes in logistics support too.
 
This suggestion actually makes more sense for an island nation - like the United Kingdom - with few neighbours strong enough to invade. This means little incentive to maintain a large standing army.
OTOH If the nation has a large merchant marine, then it also needs a large navy to protect those merchant vessels .... and of course significant numbers of marines. As technology improves, these marines adopt SCUBA, landing craft, assault gliders, helicopters, hovercraft, parachutes, etc. all to quickly pass the bloodiest part of the beach.
 
A bit of history here. From the American revolution through the 19th century the Marines were small ships companies for security & small raiding forces. For littoral operations or combined operations larger than a small battalion the US Army provided the infantry or ground force. In the early 20th Century this changed in US practice. The overseas commitments & potential wars required allocation of ground forces for operations outside the US. First the Navy required a larger than usual security force to guard exposed forward Naval bases. Logically this could be a Coast Artillery mission. However the branch of the Army showed little interest in having a ready defense force for the Navy to deposit on some distant temporary naval base. Congress required places like Panama or the Philippines have permanent defense forces and the Army complied with the funds provided, but the Army installations there were permanent things that required years to establish. Second the Army made no ready force available for seizing advanced naval bases. When President Wilson ordered the Mexican port of VeraCruz seized in 1914 it was done with a catch force of Marines and ships crew. Weeks later the Army brought together a brigade for properly defending the port.

Thus between 1900 & 1920 the Navy began organizing Marine battalions that were not part of the ships companies, or shoreside security police. Consideration of heavy weapons for these battalions began. In the 1920s two organizations emerged made up of mostly Marines and some ordinary navy personnel. The first was the Base Defense Battalion, which was a heavy artillery & heavy weapons group. These had no rigid fixed organization, but nominally included a half dozen 3" cannon, a dozen HMG, some light cannon like the Navy 37mm gun, and a rifle company. As the 1920s passed this type grew in variety, numbers, and weight of weapons. The other was the Expeditionary Brigade. This was a offensive force as well as a defense unit. At its core there were three components; a composite air group of fighter, bomber, and scout type aircraft, a ground combat group, and a support & logistics group. The ground combat group consisted of a nominal rifle regiment, artillery battalion, combat car or tank company. The support group had engineers & communications units, along with supply and maintenance support. One of these combined arms brigades was deployed to Shanghai 1927-28 as part of Army and Navy reinforcements of US forces in China. While not officially designated a brigade the Marines operating in Nicaragua were similar in composition one of these brigades.

Had War Dept and Congressional politics fallen out differently after 1890 the Marines might have remained ships companies, & a Army expeditionary corps been established out of Regular Army units similar to the Marine Brigades.
 
Top