U.S. Marine Corps Disbanded

Every so often the issue of disbanding the Marine Corps comes up. I dont think this is possible post 1945 for one reason........Iwo Jima. That said, the Marines have made enemies. President Truman comes to mind.

What if some time before or just after WW1, the Marines in their present form are disbanded? Here are two possible directions:

1. Marine units reflag to United States Army units.

2. Marines are transferred to the United States Navy. Some remain in combat units but the rest become regular sailors doing stuff on ships.
 
Its not so much that it would be disbanded, its that it could be disbanded. The Marines of that time did not have near as much political capital built up as a world renown fighting force. Shortly after WW1, the US started developing Plan Orange for Pacific operations which relied on Marines. And by WW2, the issue was completely moot.
 
Marines stay small.

The Marines stay small. The Army develops better amphibious techniques and we don't need them. The Marines picked up so many good recruits because unlike the preWWI army they actually got to fight.
 
With no USMC, the US at any time from the late 19th C to the 1st 1/2 of the 20th couldn't have contemplated projecting a forward expeditionary force power which the Marines, stationed onboard USN vessels, were able to offer in places as far apart as China, the Caribbean and Latin America. For possible scenarios, WI post-WWI, based on the 1st Marine Bde's performance as part of the 2nd INDIANHEAD Div at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood, the US govt decided to incorporate existing US Marine units into the Army's order of battle ?
 
I've never understood why Americans have the marine corps. They should just be part of the navy like everyone else has them.
 
I agree with wkwillis that the Marine Corps could have been kept very small and strictly subordinate to the Navy if the US Army had been more interested in amphibious warfare and willing to engage in "irregular" warfare. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Marines became the force to call on for supporting friendly regimes in Central America and the Caribbean against anyone seen as hostile to US interests. Then they became the recognised experts on amphibious warfare in the 1920s. They got these roles in large part because the US army refused to show any interest in them. After the last of the "Indian Wars" on the frontier, the army tended to focus its training on preparing for larger-scale, conventional fighting. If the army had developed forces trained for irregular and amphibious warfare, the Marines might have remained a small force that was stationed on ships and might sometimes go on land to support army operations - more like the marines of other nations.
 

Xen

Banned
Leej said:
I've never understood why Americans have the marine corps. They should just be part of the navy like everyone else has them.

Technically they are part of the Navy, they have just taken on a life of their own. Sorta like the way the Army Air Corps did after World War II, except the Air Corp became the Air Force. The Marine Corps will never become the Marine Force, they will always be a part of the Navy.
 
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