USMC tanks

Kingairer

'Tiger Team' Member
Just came across a YouTube video that says the USMC is disbanding it’s tank battalions. Wassup w that?
 
Force design is changing BIGLY. Just Google Marine Corps force design and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Depending on who you ask, attack helicopters are going away, too. It’s really quite interesting.


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Yes, it’s a terrible idea.

No, it doesn’t appear they talked to or took suggestion from any other sector of the Joint Force they fit into.

Yes, it will more than likely change when the Commandant overseeing its switches out.





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Force design is changing BIGLY. Just Google Marine Corps force design and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Depending on who you ask, attack helicopters are going away, too. It’s really quite interesting.


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Second question. What is force design?
 
Oh yeah. I forgot about towed field artillery, too. It’s going away, too. And we’re decreasing the number of straight leg infantry battalions.

I don’t have an opinion on it yet. I have been preoccupied with other things, but as a Marine Officer it is intensely interesting to me.


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They only had two tank battalions anyway. Still unfortunate a capability is being taken away.
 
Never did understand why the USMC had heavy tanks, for what is to be a mobile amphibious force. I would think something like a 551 Sheridan light tank would be more appropriate for them than M-1 Abrams tanks.

Then again, doctrinally, the USMC has been being utilized like the US Army for the entirety of the OIF and OEF operations, instead of how it’s supposed to be utilized.
 
Second question. What is force design?

In maneuver warfare, how your force is set up is predicated on exploiting your most likely enemy’s critical vulnerabilities in order to impact their centers of gravity. This takes into account their force as well as things like the terrain, time, and your ability to control it all.

The current Marine Corps force design is based on the Cold War. It has flexed well to counterinsurgency, as the Marine Corps ALWAYS has. It’s built on an infantry squad with 3 fire teams, 3 fire teams per squad, 3 squads per platoon, 3 platoons per company, 3 companies per battalion, 3 battalions per regiment, 3 regiments in a division, and 3 divisions in the Corps. Then Mr Potato head all the planes, helos, tanks, artillery, logistics. Scale it and name it either a MEF, MEB, or MEU. Put it on ships, or not.

General Berger and his people are turning this on its head. And therein lies where I don’t have an opinion yet. They want to make it primarily a littoral combat force oriented on China, and scalable across the the spectrum of conflict. It is bold, and it puts us back in our domain of littoral combat.


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Never did understand why the USMC had heavy tanks, for what is to be a mobile amphibious force. I would think something like a 551 Sheridan light tank would be more appropriate for them than M-1 Abrams tanks.

Then again, doctrinally, the USMC has been being utilized like the US Army for the entirety of the OIF and OEF operations, instead of how it’s supposed to be utilized.

Effectively nothing short of Abrams is survivable in combat with anything mid/late model T-72 or better. Also with the proliferation of ATGMs and the terrible effects they have on even the best modern Armor, going lighter is suicide.

M60 was obsolete as anything other than a mobile gun platform for reducing fires. There is a reason the Marine charge into Kuwait during Desert Storm was actually led in by an Army Armor Regiment (1 Bde, 2 ARDiv). Nobody thought much of M60 then, much less now (no matter what the Israelis do to it).

M855 just flat didn’t work at all like it was supposed to. That’s why they sent most of them out to play OPFOR for the end of their lives.

Effectively there was no other Armor vehicle to pick because anything would either be too light to be useful/survivable or require a whole ground up design of a new vehicle which the Marine Corp could never afford and would never prioritize with M1A2s there for the taking.


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Effectively nothing short of Abrams is survivable in combat with anything mid/late model T-72 or better. Also with the proliferation of ATGMs and the terrible effects they have on even the best modern Armor, going lighter is suicide.

M60 was obsolete as anything other than a mobile gun platform for reducing fires. There is a reason the Marine charge into Kuwait during Desert Storm was actually led in by an Army Armor Regiment (1 Bde, 2 ARDiv). Nobody thought much of M60 then, much less now (no matter what the Israelis do to it).

M855 just flat didn’t work at all like it was supposed to. That’s why they sent most of them out to play OPFOR for the end of their lives.

Effectively there was no other Armor vehicle to pick because anything would either be too light to be useful/survivable or require a whole ground up design of a new vehicle which the Marine Corp could never afford and would never prioritize with M1A2s there for the taking.


Makes sense, although the line between turning the USMC into a miniature US Army that has some amphibious capability, has been getting more and more blurred for the past 18 years and even during Vietnam, with USMC units performing more of a long term role ala the Army. Hopefully, the new sizing of the USMC is intended to place it more in line with its classic amphibious role.
 
Effectively nothing short of Abrams is survivable in combat with anything mid/late model T-72 or better. Also with the proliferation of ATGMs and the terrible effects they have on even the best modern Armor, going lighter is suicide.

M60 was obsolete as anything other than a mobile gun platform for reducing fires. There is a reason the Marine charge into Kuwait during Desert Storm was actually led in by an Army Armor Regiment (1 Bde, 2 ARDiv). Nobody thought much of M60 then, much less now (no matter what the Israelis do to it).

M855 just flat didn’t work at all like it was supposed to. That’s why they sent most of them out to play OPFOR for the end of their lives.

Effectively there was no other Armor vehicle to pick because anything would either be too light to be useful/survivable or require a whole ground up design of a new vehicle which the Marine Corp could never afford and would never prioritize with M1A2s there for the taking.


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Sheridan stuck around largely because it was only airborne tank the West had. The 152mm (used also on M60A2) never worked as hoped.

American troops haven’t been attacked from the air since Korea, I believe. With air supremacy, the classic tank v. tank of WWII and envisioned for the Cold War through the Fulda Gap is not likely. And our likely adversaries aren’t really set up for it, either.

I don’t know how it will play out, but history has shown we’ve always been surprised, so it doesn’t hurt to entertain new ideas. Patton and tank warfare were laughed at by the majority before France fell in 1940. And many surface warfare old-timers that didn’t take Billy Mitchell seriously—even after he sunk some old battlewagons as a demo—insisted a warship at open sea could resist aircraft even after Pearl Harbor. Then Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk.

Bottom line, we could be wasting money now unless we buy mechwarrior suits (like Avatar). Who knows? If it is, I want one!!
 
American troops haven’t been attacked from the air since Korea, I believe.

Troops, I believe you’re right. Sailors, however, the VPAF managed to bomb and strafe one of our destroyers with MiG-17s in the Tonkin Gulf in ‘72.
 
Never did understand why the USMC had heavy tanks, for what is to be a mobile amphibious force. I would think something like a 551 Sheridan light tank would be more appropriate for them than M-1 Abrams tanks.

Then again, doctrinally, the USMC has been being utilized like the US Army for the entirety of the OIF and OEF operations, instead of how it’s supposed to be utilized.

The tank battalions were there to send detachments to the MEU on ships. 4-8 tanks aren't going to stop the Red Army, but can beat back the handful of T-72s Lybia, Venezuela, or Sri Lanka could field when the first wave lands.
 
Just came across a YouTube video that says the USMC is disbanding it’s tank battalions. Wassup w that?
There's no money in Tanks anymore.

"We fight today's war of known unknowns with yesterday's unkown known resources"... or some similar nonsense that sounds real smart when stated by a dude making bank... a dude who, while looking good in a suit, missed the global emergence of Covid-19 back in January and February and even early March.

I mean, whoever came up with this isn't wrong... just many decades late. He'll probably get a medal anyway... then "retire" and go work for a consulting firm.

Follow the money.
 
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There's no money in Tanks anymore.

"We fight today's war of known unknowns with yesterday's unkown known resources"... or some similar nonsense that sounds real smart when stated by a dude making bank... a dude who, while looking good in a suit, missed the global emergence of Covid-19 back in January and February and even early March.

I mean, whoever came up with this isn't wrong... just many decades late. He'll probably get a medal anyway... then "retire" and go work for a consulting firm.

Follow the money.

Anybody that tells you there is no place on the modern battlefield for Tanks and Mechanized Armor is selling something and hasn’t been on a modern battlefield.

Russia didn’t invade Ukraine with some ultra forward thinking departure from the last couple decades of ground warfare theory. They did it with light forces seizing key terrain in the immediate followed by reinforced Mechanized Infantry and Armor to hold that ground.

Armor has a forcing function on how your opponent intends to defend/attack and creates a far more limited list of options and a much more intense requirement to mass forces in achieving/denying overmatch. Thats why the Army went on a desperate search for a way to upgun the Stryker into the Dragoon. It was great as a quickly self deployable set piece on a low intensity security mission like say 2007-08 Iraq. It was a liability in any fight against mechanized forces.


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China is increasing its influence into Pacific island countries.
This is so they can station long range anti ship missiles and control the west Pacific down to, and including Australia and New Zealand.
The Marines found that heavy tanks and few large ships would be ineffective for future conflicts with China.
New acquisitions include small vehicles and smaller landing ships (Light Amphibious Warships).
It's "island hopping" all over again, this time with hyper sonic anti ship missiles.
 
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