Cpl. Blake Kirkham, assigned to 2nd Royal Australian Regiment, 5th
platoon, secures the beach head for an amphibious assault vehicle during
a mechanized raid rehearsal on Pyramid Rock Beach at Marine Corps Base
Hawaii during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010 exercises. RIMPAC is a
biennial, multinational exercise designed to strengthen regional
partnerships and improve multinational interoperability. (U.S. Marine
Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Jody Lee Smith/Released)
Strategypage has the above photo listed as "Australian Marines invading Hawaii"...Is the 2nd Royal Australian Regiment now listed as a Marine unit? Are there plans to re-designate an Australian Regiment as Marines? It would make sense from the equipment sets that Australia is soon to field...Google searches turned up nothing so if anyone knows please send the info this way.
Australian Army's plans for permanent littoral ops:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.defence.gov.au/army/docs/SeaPowerConference.pdf
The entire (maybe only AF and army) military could conceivably become USMC-like. Officers already attend a tri-service academy.
According to wiki, grain of salt added, the 2nd RAR is a light infantry outfit and part of their rapid response brigade.
ReplyDeleteI kind of doubt they would re-designate it a marine unit because of the regimental history. Probably just keep it listed 'light infantry-amphibious capable' or something like that.
And making the whole service USMC-like is actually a great idea for smaller armies like the Aussies or maybe Canada.
yeah but you're going to revamp your entire Army if you make it Marine Corps like....it would be the same as having your entire Army similar to the 82nd or the 101st...sounds good in theory but to actually do it would leave some gaps in capability.
ReplyDeletethe most glaring would be prolonged combat. the Marine Corps is doing it because we have to but its not designed to serve that function. in truth the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should have ideally become all Army affairs by now and the Marine Corps should be acting as a strategic reserve or as a rapid deployment force to handle other issues out of area.
the fact that the USMC has had to act as a second land army is in fact proof that the Army was cut too deeply after the cold war.
True enough. If they had kept the 6th and 7th Light divisions that might have relieved the pressure on the heavy divisions and the 10th Mt for some of the various 'peacekeeping' ops.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we could reactivate some of the Army Reserve combat units to take some of the regular's heavy divisions? Most of the time when we've deployed them its taken awhile. You could make the NG more of a home defense unit and avoid some of the trouble their deployments have caused.
good point me. light infantry is a disappearing skill in the US Army.
ReplyDeletethe only people that still practice it are Special Forces, Rangers and the 10th Mountain...everyone else is motorized/mechanized. mech infantry is different...i wonder what this will do for the future.
Hey Sol,
ReplyDeleteNo, 2RAR (2nd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment) is not a designated "marine corps" style unit.
They are a light infantry battalion attached to Australia's 3rd Brigade (based in Townsville) which is one of our 2 "high readiness" Brigades. (The other being 1 Brigade in Darwin).
2RAR however, does more than the other battalions, maintain a capability to employ in a marine style role and will I suspect, be the Battalion tasked with providing the " permanent" rifle company that will be deployed on aboard one of the two Canberra Class LHD's we are acquiring. (The ships will have a rifle company attached to which ever vessel is at the highest readiness state, as a minimum whenever they are at sea. Obviously exercises and deployments will see a bigger deployment, but they will always have a rifle company available and probably a specwarops detachment).
2RAR does the most amount of training with RAN and our existing amphibious capability out of our regular infantry battalions (Exercise Sea Lion etc) and are clearly continuing on with this, now at Rimpac.
They are not a designated Marine Corps, but are probably the closest Australia has.
Cheers,
AD