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Big B -> RE: US Marines rule ground combat (5/16/2006 9:29:32 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
Add up combat engineers and rifle squads and marines are larger than US Army Divs.
about 25% of the manpower in USMC Divs are combat engineer sqds thats why they are sooo dangerous and usefull in late war assaults on fortified atolls
Yes, but regardless of that - their organic rifle companies are still about 25% larger.
B
EDIT:
On TO&E differences between US Army and USMC by 1945
No matter how you slice it - USMC Divs in WitP should not have LESS infantry than Army Divs..
From http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_okinawa1.html
While there are some superficial similarities between the organisation of US Army and Marine Corps divisions, they are in reality quite different from one another. Neither of them can really be considered superior to the other as they both conducted amphibious operations, both fought the same enemy on the same terrain over the same period of time. Although the Marine division is specifically designed for such operations, the US Army division is easily tailored for the task. By 1945, Army divisions were somewhat smaller than Marine divisions in their basic size (14,000 vs. 19,000) but were better equipped in certain categories of weapons. Reinforced, the difference narrowed slightly as Army divisions grew to 22,000 and Marine divisions grew to 26,000 with supporting units.
..snip..
The infantry regiments of both differed considerably although they used the same sort of equipment. Both the Army and the Marines used the 'triangular' structure - each regiment had three battalions, each of three rifle companies, each of three rifle platoons, each of three rifle squads. But it was there that any similarity ended. Army regimental strength was listed as 3,068 but on Okinawa started around 300 men below authorised strength. The regimental cannon company had six 105mm M7 self-propelled guns that made excellent assault guns for blasting caves and pillboxes, while the antitank company had nine 3.7cm M3A1 guns. The infantry battalion numbered some 860 personnel with a headquarters company and a heavy weapons company equipped with eight .30cal M1917A1 water-cooled machineguns and six 81mm M1 mortars. Each rifle company had some 193 personnel in three rifle platoons, each of three rifle squads, each with twelve men equipped with a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) M1918A2, eleven M1 Garand rifles and one M7 rifle grenade launcher. The company's weapons platoon had two .30cal M1919A4 air-cooled machineguns and three 60mm M2 mortars. A number of 2.36in M9 rocket launchers (bazookas) and M2-2 flamethrowers were also available.
The Army infantry regiment actually changed very little during the course of the Second World War, whereas the Marine infantry regiment (and indeed the division) underwent almost continuous evolution. By the time of Operation Iceberg, the divisions were still technically operating under the May 1944 Table of Organisation and Equipment (TO&E) but the regiments (each of 3,400 personnel) had reorganised under the 1 May 1945 TO&E that had been implemented early. The regimental weapons company consisted of two antitank platoons with four 3.7cm guns each and a self-propelled howitzer platoon of four 105mm M7s. The regimental headquarters included a scout and sniper platoon (43 men). There was no longer a separate weapons company in every infantry battalion (each of 996 men) - it had been disbanded and its weapons shared between the units that tended to make use of them. The battalion headquarters company had been given a mortar platoon with four 81mm mortars and an assault platoon (of fifty-five men) with three assault sections (each of two seven-man squads with a flamethrower, a 2.36in bazooka and demolition men) that would support each company. Each rifle company consisted of 242 men with three rifle platoons, a headquarters (fifty-one men) that had a section of three 60mm mortars and a machinegun platoon (forty-six men) that had eight .30cal air-cooled and six .30cal water-cooled machineguns. Each rifle platoon had 45 men in a headquarters and three thirteen-man rifle squads, each squad having a squad leader (M1 carbine), and three four-man fire teams with a team leader (M1 rifle, M7 grenade launcher), rifleman (M1 rifle), automatic rifleman (BAR) and assistant automatic rifleman (M1 rifle, M7 grenade launcher). The fire team concept had evolved from the Marine Corps involvement in the Banana Wars of the 1920s and 1930s with each team being built around an automatic weapon. It was a great success and eventually exported to many other armed forces.
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