SIGforum
UK Marines best US Marines in Simulated Combat
November 04, 2021, 03:58 PM
StramboUK Marines best US Marines in Simulated Combat
As stated without knowing the exact details of the exercise there is no way to judge the outcome. Further, training necessities can turn an asset into a liability unless you think outside the box.
Here’s an example: as an infantry platoon leader we had to assault an objective surrounded by triple strand concertina wire. We had a combat engineer team attached with a (simulated) bangalore torpedo to blow a big hole in the wire, shocking the enemy, sending shrapnel their way and providing some obscuration due to the dust.
That would be in real combat. In training you place the bangalore torpedo and then patiently wait for the exercise observer to come over, cut a hole in the wire for you, pull it out of the way and mark the breach with engineering tape for safety. While that’s going on the opposing force is chewing you up with machine guns all trained on that breach location.
So, what I did was use the explosive breach as a feint. Once it was placed and the enemy focused on it, my real assault element body-breached at the entry road where there were no stakes holding up the wire, seized a foothold by surprise. By then the breach was open by the observer and my support element moved through it in a flanking maneuver.
Anyway I just evaluated the situation including the exercise limitations and used them to my advantage. In combat I’d do it differently but the same evaluation and exploitation process.
And…losing in an exercise is also a good thing especially to new tactics, provided a good AAR is done and fixes implemented. Learn a lot that way!
“People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.” –Chuck Palahnuik
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https://preparefit.ck.page November 04, 2021, 06:03 PM
corsairThere's a bit more coming out about this EX via social feeds and now articles, and as predicted, there's a whole lot more to it than a simple: we won, they lost, ergo, our guys are superior baloney.
The exercise was to test a number of new offensive tactics at the battalion level. USMC, RM, along with Dutch, US Army SOF and a handful of other country SOF units were tasked with implementing and testing some updated doctrine against an opposition force (OPFOR) of a standard USMC infantry battalion using traditional tactics & procedures. USMC supplied vehicles, aircraft and communications for both sides in order to test-out the theories in this exercise.
Marine Corps Rejects Reports That It ‘Surrendered’ To British Forces During ExerciseNovember 04, 2021, 07:50 PM
LeemurRoyal Marines and the Aussie equivalent are some bad dudes. I wouldn’t want to all square off with either of them or our Marines.
November 05, 2021, 06:25 AM
tacfoleyquote:
Originally posted by corsair:
The UK press is playing this up and the US press of course is on full cynicism mode. The public gets into their head that because A-team won, that means B-team is inferior. Not the case. Exercises come in all flavors and varieties, just depends on the objectives.
There's not a whole lot we know about this Ex...was it purely an infantry vs infantry, no support, limited comms exercise? Military exercises usually have a number of controls put into place, depends on the focus whether its an Ex for senior leadership, mid-level leadership; how the troops take to new tactics or, equipment; pressure test new ideas; what limitations were put into place for supporting fire, air support, comms...etc.
In short, and on paper, USMC has a WHOLE lot more support and combat power than the RM. The RM, however are some bad-ass hombres with the tools they have.
quote:
Originally posted by 12131:
So, it appears to me, who knows next to nothing about the military, that one group is Special Forces, and the other general forces? What kind of comparison is that?
The USMC is a general purpose force focused around a combined arms structure...the basic maneuver formation has its own infantry, has its own artillery, has its own air support and its own logistics all organic to the unit. Its main mission is supposed to be amphibious warfare, the last 30-years however has proven otherwise.
The RM is significantly smaller organization who's mission is as a raiding force. They're also known as commandos their principal tactics is harassment, interdiction and reconnaissance from the sea.
Best answer. Thank you.
November 05, 2021, 06:26 AM
tacfoleyquote:
Originally posted by PASig:
The way I see and understand it is the USMC is almost like a smaller US Army but more sea-based and with their own air force.
The British Royal Marines are traditional Naval Infantry.
Also nailed. Thanks.
November 05, 2021, 06:37 AM
Blume9mmIn my limited experience you can spend a lot of time planning your attack, (and should) but the most important key factor is that once the enemy is engaged the plan will and should change.
My Native American Name:
"Runs with Scissors"
November 05, 2021, 09:13 AM
jljonesquote:
Originally posted by Leemur:
Royal Marines and the Aussie equivalent are some bad dudes. I wouldn’t want to all square off with either of them or our Marines.
We trained with the Australians back in ‘89. They are in fact hard chargers. Plus, their mobile chow halls (in the middle of nowhere outback) served steak and lobster every night.

November 05, 2021, 10:09 AM
RogueJSKquote:
Originally posted by jljones:
We trained with the Australians back in ‘89. They are in fact hard chargers. Plus, their mobile chow halls (in the middle of nowhere outback) served steak and lobster every night.
"A day in the [Australian] Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade!"November 05, 2021, 10:46 AM
LoswsmithDoesn't it take a diamond to cut a diamond? Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. Insert your own platitude here, but wargames have a winner and a loser and Britain has so little to be happy about anyway.
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November 05, 2021, 10:47 AM
Loswsmithquote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
quote:
Originally posted by jljones:
We trained with the Australians back in ‘89. They are in fact hard chargers. Plus, their mobile chow halls (in the middle of nowhere outback) served steak and lobster every night.
"A day in the [Australian] Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade!"
Isn't that the Colonial Marines? Australia
is a colony so maybe I'm misremembering.
___________________________________________
Life Member NRA & Washington Arms Collectors
Mistake not my current state of joshing gentle peevishness for the awesome and terrible majesty of the towering seas of ire that are themselves the milquetoast shallows fringing my vast oceans of wrath.
Velocitas Incursio Vis - Gandhi
November 05, 2021, 11:02 AM
sigcrazy7I have never quite understood the seemingly endless glee the world derives from a U.S. defeat in a training exercise. Whether it’s a Swedish sub sinking a U.S. carrier, or the U.K. Marines defeating the USMC, it seems to be big news. It is simply meaningless.
The English have been, and will continue to be, our closest allies in the world. Everything about the United States is inextricably bound to the country that spawned ours. Our language, our laws, and our spiritual fabric are connected to that island across the sea. Not since the days of flint and ball have we taken up arms against that country, and I cannot imagine a scenario where that would ever again be the case.
Our own martial story cannot be told without a frequent segue into English military history. We as a nation cheered the successful evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, and later mourned for the horrific losses when HMS Hood met her demise. More recently, it was England who fully supported every effort of our nation in the Middle East. While France wouldn’t allow our bombers to traverse French airspace in 1986, it was the U.K. who were hosting those very bombers. British soldiers have fought by our side and supported our country in every major conflict for two centuries, an unprecedented friendship in world politics, one that shall hopefully forever endure.
My point is that saying some U.K. Marines outfought your own is like saying that your left arm can outwrestle your right. Both are connected to the same body, and shall always fight together.
Churchill said “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts”. I truly believe that both the U.S. and U.K. will always have that courage to be there for one another, and I don’t gain happiness from one’s defeat of another in training, except as an opportunity to improve as a whole.
Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus November 05, 2021, 12:03 PM
tacfoleyquote:
Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
I have never quite understood the seemingly endless glee the world derives from a U.S. defeat in a training exercise. Whether it’s a Swedish sub sinking a U.S. carrier, or the U.K. Marines defeating the USMC, it seems to be big news. It is simply meaningless.
The English have been, and will continue to be, our closest allies in the world. Everything about the United States is inextricably bound to the country that spawned ours. Our language, our laws, and our spiritual fabric are connected to that island across the sea. Not since the days of flint and ball have we taken up arms against that country, and I cannot imagine a scenario where that would ever again be the case.
Our own martial story cannot be told without a frequent segue into English military history. We as a nation cheered the successful evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, and later mourned for the horrific losses when HMS Hood met her demise. More recently, it was England who fully supported every effort of our nation in the Middle East. While France wouldn’t allow our bombers to traverse French airspace in 1986, it was the U.K. who were hosting those very bombers. British soldiers have fought by our side and supported our country in every major conflict for two centuries, an unprecedented friendship in world politics, one that shall hopefully forever endure.
My point is that saying some U.K. Marines outfought your own is like saying that your left arm can outwrestle your right. Both are connected to the same body, and shall always fight together.
Churchill said “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts”. I truly believe that both the U.S. and U.K. will always have that courage to be there for one another, and I don’t gain happiness from one’s defeat of another in training, except as an opportunity to improve as a whole.
Wow. All I can think of to say.