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Edited on Thu May-12-05 08:56 PM by DS1
This answer focuses primarily on the Amtracks (AAVs Assault Amphibian Vehicles) that are mentioned in the recent article about that entire platoon being wiped out.
Because with so few dollars for training, the Marines turned its focus towards inspections. More inspections. Drill, marching, more inspections. Corporal punishment was phased out and replaced with formal Page 11's or worse, Office Hours for the slightest infractions. The Marines got so caught up *I was in 91-95, my brother was in 5 years from about 99-03* on being a bunch of shiny toy soldiers actual hard combat training was all but forgotten. I went through bootcamp's "toughest" scenarios having to yell "BANG" at targets since we were each issued 30 blanks for the day. I threw a total of one live grenade in 4 years. I never fired a live M203 round. Granted, my job was to drive the AAVs that the latest report is about, in the article they are called Amtracs, a name taken from the Vietnam era Amphibious Tractors.
In my 4 years of being a "Trakker", YATYAS to all my brothers, I never once fired from the turrent while the tank was in motion. In fact, I can easily say that I never fired more than 150 rounds out of the .50 cal. I fired less than 30 out of the MK19 Grenade Launcher. All of these were fired at stationary targets, typically hulks of abandoned water buffalos, from the same firing position the guy before me used. Shit, we didn't even get to fire real emergency flares, we were given one demonstration of what they looked like and how far they flew in tank school then proceeded to practice with duds.
Marine training budgets are shit. Rumor had it that the Navy Seals spent more money on ammo per day than the entire Marine corps, and frankly we all believed it.
Let's get to tactics.
Our tactics as Amphibious Tank drivers, when it came to invading beaches was too look as good as possible. This meant that we'd approach the beach to a thousand meters, then the lead tank would make a right or left turn, and the rest would follow at that point. Essentially, if in an actual invasion, we were lining ourselves up for the enemy to calibrate his weapons and play shoot the yellow ducks. Once we were all in line parrallel to the beach the order was given to advance and we'd all make simultaneous (see a pattern here? ) right or left turns and gun the throttle. It wasn't a race to get out of the water as fast as possible and somewhat out of harms way - our tanks are rated at I think 3 knots in the water. The pressure was on us to all keep a straight and orderly line, sort of like an inspection. Upon hitting the beach, we'd have to sit there until the last tank landed and the order was given to drop the ramps. In reality, we'd have all been shot to pieces by that point, but we'd have been shot to pieces in style. Once the grunts were out, they'd form their fireteam positions in front of us, and we were supposed to simulate providing suppressive fire by moving our turrets left and right. I should add that there's no targeting systems in these things. No stabilized guns, just a scope, two handcranks, and your wits.
If I'm deflating the aura of the Marines, too bad, this is how it was. During one exercise, a simple water march (driving the tanks around the side of an island for an hour or so) from A to B, 80% of the tanks broke down. The few of us that actually made it got the night off while the mechs worked overnight to repair our hogs. Breakdowns happened all the time. Which gets me to our land training.
Training in our tanks involved going as slowly as possible. We didn't want to break anything. Our LTs were too scared to push, despite even having some Gulf I combat vets asking them wtf. Training wasn't about lessons learned, it was about being able to notch in a pre-set number of hours in some tabulature from Command Marine Corps. Breaking a final drive *the expensive piece that connects the tranny to the tracks - stupidly placed in the front* was hugely expensive, and took hundreds of man hours to fix. This was just about ~the~ primary concern, so speeds were kept to a minimum.
Eh, I've done enough ranting. It's not fair to say that all the Marine units are getting their asses kicked for using stupid tactics, I'm sure that's untrue. But what I can tell you is that the AAVs are the weakest link, and it's no big secret that AAV platoons are where the Marines send the senior enlisted people that made it to senior levels just for sticking around long enough - in other words, it's where they send all the dolts. Yet, in general, the Marines are soo incredibly overfocused on looking pretty and being 'squared away' with their 'pressed cammies' and 'shiny boots' that they've, IMO, lost their way.
edit: There's ONE crucial thing I left out: People talk about Clinton gutting the military, but when I got to my unit it had about 70% of its tanks in working condition. This was in 1992. Just as I was leaving in late 1995, we all had brand new tools, and a brand new tank was being offloaded at our unit per week until we were fully replaced with new stuff. About a week after I left the unit was in a new building, and was fully operational. That's what the FReepers call gutting the military
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