Navy Expeditionary Combat Battalion

[TTEscrima]

Just a little heads up for those interested in a little adventure in their lives, the Navy is forming a new outfit, The Expeditionary Combat Battalion. Essentially it will be a Naval infantry group since the Marines capabilities have fallen short of the Navy's desires the Navy is replacing them. The men will be trained somewhere between Masters At Arms and S.E.A.L.s according to the C.N.O.

In the works right now are three riverine warfare squadrons; a battalion of Marine-like naval infantry; a civil affairs battalion; detachments to train foreign navies; teams to exploit information gleaned in maritime interdiction operations; foreign area officers who specialize in certain cultures and regions; and various enhanced intelligence and identification mechanisms.

Roll it all together, and it’s a Navy for fighting insurgencies from fresh water or close to it.

“If it’s in the maritime domain, we should own it,” said a senior Navy official who briefed defense reporters in the Pentagon on July 13.

Outgoing Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark initiated the service’s new war on terrorism plans. Incoming CNO Adm. Mike Mullen approves.

Hard-charging sailors who have been looking for a direct action role in the terror war will surely be stoked.

“We need to create a sailor with a bayonet in his teeth, ready to go ashore and mix it up,” the Navy official said.

This is a a great opportunity for Sailors looking for a fast track to promotions and adventure.

[l0rca]

If they wanted a Navy combat squad better than the Marines, they should just stick all the Corpsman together! Hoorah!

[Tom Yum]

Just a little heads up for those interested in a little adventure in their lives, the Navy is forming a new outfit, The Expeditionary Combat Battalion. Essentially it will be a Naval infantry group since the Marines capabilities have fallen short of the Navy's desires the Navy is replacing them. The men will be trained somewhere between Masters At Arms and S.E.A.L.s according to the C.N.O.

In the works right now are three riverine warfare squadrons; a battalion of Marine-like naval infantry; a civil affairs battalion; detachments to train foreign navies; teams to exploit information gleaned in maritime interdiction operations; foreign area officers who specialize in certain cultures and regions; and various enhanced intelligence and identification mechanisms.

Roll it all together, and it’s a Navy for fighting insurgencies from fresh water or close to it.

“If it’s in the maritime domain, we should own it,” said a senior Navy official who briefed defense reporters in the Pentagon on July 13.

Outgoing Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark initiated the service’s new war on terrorism plans. Incoming CNO Adm. Mike Mullen approves.

Hard-charging sailors who have been looking for a direct action role in the terror war will surely be stoked.

“We need to create a sailor with a bayonet in his teeth, ready to go ashore and mix it up,” the Navy official said.

This is a a great opportunity for Sailors looking for a fast track to promotions and adventure.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/.www/rhumblines/rhumblines727.doc

This sounds like a hybridization of the Recon Marines and Navy SWCC teams, better yet a future opportunity for a boat guy who wants to go officer in the future.

A more important question - what are the critiques of the Marines work from the Navy's point of view and how does the Naval Expeditionart Team attempt to improve our forces ability to move, shoot and communicate at an amphibious level compared to what the Marines are already doing?

[TTEscrima]

A more important question - what are the critiques of the Marines work from the Navy's point of view and how does the Naval Expeditionart Team attempt to improve our forces ability to move, shoot and communicate at an amphibious level compared to what the Marines are already doing?

First and foremost the force will outperform the Marines simply because it will made up of Sailors instead of Marines. People seem to forget that from WWII forward NO Marine has set foot on a beach that a sailor hadn't already been there to find the best routes. During WWII those sailors wore swim trunks had bare feet and were only allowed to carry knives because they were so Gung Ho it was the only way to keep them from assaulting the islands before the Marines got a chance. If this had been an option during my time I'd have been ALL over it! Receiving my first Expeditionary service medal was one of my proudest moments, I made necklaces out of several of them.

[TTEscrima]

If they wanted a Navy combat squad better than the Marines, they should just stick all the Corpsman together! Hoorah!

Why does the enemy need their peckers checked?

[Tant01]

First and foremost the force will outperform the Marines simply because it will made up of Sailors instead of Marines. People seem to forget that from WWII forward NO Marine has set foot on a beach that a sailor hadn't already been there to find the best routes. During WWII those sailors wore swim trunks had bare feet and were only allowed to carry knives because they were so Gung Ho it was the only way to keep them from assaulting the islands before the Marines got a chance. If this had been an option during my time I'd have been ALL over it! Receiving my first Expeditionary service medal was one of my proudest moments, I made necklaces out of several of them.

You know what's FUNNY... Because there really is SOME truth to it.

One sailor don't hold much against a squad of marines but man for man some squids are tougher than some Marines...

Just my opinion.

[TTEscrima]

You know what's FUNNY... Because there really is SOME truth to it.

One sailor don't hold much against a squad of marines but man for man some squids are tougher than some Marines...

Just my opinion.

The old NCDU guys really were limited to shorts and bare feet and a knife, then they relaxed and let them have shoes. The reasoning was they were too valuable to risk, records show they sneaked gear and got into the action anyway.

[DickHardman]

so basically we are so short on personnel on the ground they are forcing sailors to perform infantry duties??? is that whats going on???

[TTEscrima]

so basically we are so short on personnel on the ground they are forcing sailors to perform infantry duties??? is that whats going on???

Thats BEEN an issue hence old Sand Pirates like me but this is a new program designed to lessen the Navy's reliance on Marines since they're stretched too thin, plus the Navy brass feels we can do the job better than the Marines were, their program was already canceled due to poor performance.



From strategypage.com

AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS: USN Creates a New Marine Corps

July 20, 2005: The U.S. Navy feels it is in need of more “soldiers of the sea.” But since the U.S. Navy has lost control of the U.S. Marine Corps, the navy is assembling a new force of sailors serving as naval infantry. This is not really new. For example, the toughest troops in the Navy Department are not the marines, but the sailors who belong to the SEALs, an organization formed in the 1960s. But the process of regenerating the American naval infantry is accelerating. There was a time, not too long ago, when the marines where what marines had always been, soldiers who belonged to the navy and served on ships. But since World War II, the U.S. Marine Corps have developed into a truly separate force, no longer available to the navy.

While marines like to think that the Marine Corps has, since 1798, been a separate service, this did not actually happen until quite recently. Until World War II, the Marine Corps was so small, and dependent on the navy (for amphibious ships and, well, work to do), that in practice, marines tended to do whatever the navy asked them to do. But after World War II, the much larger marine force became, gradually, a truly independent service. The marines were still intertwined with the navy, but increasingly, able to defy the admirals. Thus we have the navy forming the SEAL commandos, in the early 1960s, using sailors, rather than marines. Over the next few decades, the navy slowly stopped using marines for their traditional job of providing onboard ship security. By the end of the century, the navy was content to let the marines be whatever they could get away with, and the navy would basically do without them.

After September 11, 2001, when the navy sought to increase its security force for ships in port, it did not turn to the marines (who long had taken care of that sort of thing), but greatly expanded the number of “Masters at Arms” (previously a job category, not a force). Now comes the ECG (expeditionary combat battalion) of high quality sailors who could fight on water or land in coastal operations. The ECG would obtain its manpower from those who apply to join the SEALs, but don’t make it. The SEALs are a very selective organization, accepting less than one in ten of those who apply. Now the navy wants to do something with those high quality rejects. The recent navy announcement that it is putting together a “brown water (coastal and rivers)” force mentioned an infantry component, and that these troops would be sailors, not troops from the Marine Corps. This new force also makes it clear how much the navy and marines have grown apart.

But the ECG is expected to be higher quality than the marines, something close to U.S. Army Special Forces. The ECG would be trained in foreign languages and cultures, and be part of the force that provided training to foreign navies. But the ECG would also take over some SEAL functions, like providing boarding parties for dangerous interdiction missions. Most of these boarding operations are not dangerous, and are handled by specially trained sailors and Masters at Arms. These folks are also doing a job that has traditionally belonged to “marines.” But since the U.S. Navy no longer has control of the U.S. Marine Corps, and needs marines, it has to rebuild the force under a new name. Or, rather, several new names.

The new marine force will be only a few thousand strong, which is more in line with the proportion of marines in other navies. The U.S. Navy lost its original marine force because the U.S. Marine Corps got so large during World War II that it was no longer a part of the navy, but a truly separate entity. This new force of naval infantry also revives another old navy tradition; infantry training for sailors. Until about a century ago, infantry training for sailors, and even infantry exercises on land, were a regular feature of navy life. All this had faded away by the 1930s. The navy stopped issuing field manuals for naval infantry in the 1960s. But the war on terror, and increased emphasis on brown water operations, has returned many sailors to the old ways. The new naval infantry will perform many of the traditional marine functions, without being called marines.