How come the US Marines are using "older" equipment compared to the US Army?

[Itael]

The Marines always seems to be using relatively "older" equipment compared to the US Army. Here are a few examples -

Air Power:

1) Super Cobra which is really good, but it's still a Vietnam war era design.

2) Harrier which is a British design and it's also dating to the 60's

Armor:

1) LAV is an old 'Swiss Army' design - which is not innovative

2) AAV - Old design from the 70's - will it be replaced by the ERV?

When it comes to small arms they are all using the M16 instead of the M4...

Last but not least they use more men per squad which sounds like an "Older" doctrine.

I am no weapons expert and it's just a plain look at their equipment list.

I would love to learn more and hear comments.

Itai

[Flanker15]

The US army is favoured over the USMC for funding and new fancy tech, they also need their stuff to be compatible with their naval launch platforms.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Actually, the Marines don't compete with the Army. They are part of the US Navy. It is inherent to a Navy to want new shiny ships, with the Marines perpetual runners up in this funding race.

[theFightingSeabee]

And Seabees get the Marines old crap. I swear some of my stuff still had mud from 'Nam on them. Only recently did they move from the m60e3 to the m240g.

[FAI]

It took them a while to move from M60 Patton to to M1 Abrams too....

[Secondbrooks]

I've heard that nightvision devices and such individual "high tech" equipment have been in low numbers as well for long time. But that improvement in this area has been remarkable after start of OIF.

[Nidan1]

Its all part of the "mystique".

Marines can do anything with nothing!

Anyone can win a battle with up to date weapons and equipment.

[MikeyD]

About LAV being an old Swiss design. Marines first picked theirs up way back in '82, by the invasion of Kosovo in 1998(?) the U.S. Army was visibly drooling with envy over the Canadian LAVs that led the NATO march (while they struggled to keep up in the rear) and immediately started a vehicle contest that resulted in Stryker (base design by Mowag, by the way). Marines were 20 years ahead of the curve!

About Super Cobra. Remember, for much of its service life Apache has been a DOG. Things would break all the time on them, just sitting on the tarmac. The Army lost an Apache during the previously mentioned march into Kosovo when one just up-and-crashed for no good reason. Marines have been better off without them.

About M16 vs M4. Apparently Army doesn't put much effort into training its soldiers for extended-range precision shooting so Army wasn't really much good at taking advantage of M16s range anyway. Marines do. Otherwise they're the same weapon.

[flamingknives]

Mr. flamingPicky would like to point out that the Stryker is a slightly newer Swiss design.

The Harrier is still unique (and will be for a few more years).

The EFV was supposed to be in service by now. It's not the world's most successful project.

[The_Red_Rage]

The Harrier is still unique (and will be for a few more years).

Not really...

http://www.vectorsite.net/avredvt.html

[MikeyD]

About Super Cobra being a Vietnam era design, I'm reminded of the joke about grandpa's trusty old axe. That axe was incredible, it just kept doing the job generation after generation. With all the use it got we had to replace the handle twice and the head three times but it just kept on going.

In other words, Super Cobra is like Grandpa's old axe. It's the same aircraft but everything's been changed on it twice-over.

[Battlefront.com]

The Marines do take pride in having to "make do", as well as taking pride about doing things differently than the Army. They feel it makes them sharper, more creative, and (therefore) more effective. There is some truth to that, without any slight on the US Army. The Army is a far larger, more political, and interfered with organization because of all its huge funding. It is only logical that innovation and creativity would take a hit because of layers of bureaucracy, Congress, lobbyists, and of course the defense contractors themselves.

An old story I like to repeat is what happened when Monty Python went to make the movie The Holy Grail. They had intended on having horses for the main characters, but their $100,000 budget and shooting schedule didn't allow for the horses, trainers, insurance, and time needed to get the actors able to ride. So they had to get creative and that resulted in the famous coconuts and pantomime horse riding. Now, tell me... would you rather have had Monty Python working with a $1,000,000 budget or the $100,000 they actually had? Exactly

Still, as some of my Marines friends admit, that without the Army there would be no ability to take out large military forces and huge amounts of terrain. The Marine Corps is neither big enough nor mechanized enough to do this task on its own. Which is the secret to the complimentary success of both... the Marines are the way they are because they don't have to be something else.

Of course this is the less biased viewpoint. If you ask a Marine his opinion, especially after a bottle of tequila, you'll get a somewhat more "colorful" answer

Steve

[tiny_tanker]

And of course they like to break things... and you can't buy people who break stuff nice things That and there budget keeps getting blown on "stealth" ships.

[Lampshade111]

The Marines have less money to work with than the Army and several of their programs such as the EFV have not been well managed. It has been delayed way too long and in my opinion they focused too much on getting a high swimming speed. (However, I still want to see it in CM:SF someday.)

Overall the Marine Corp is a more infantry focused force, their armor is mainly in a supporting role. They use their amtracks and trucks more as battle taxis, while the Army operates it's Bradleys and Strykers much closer with the infantry whenever possible. The Marine Corp choose to primarily use M16A4s rather than M4A1s and generally their infantry is very well armed.

The Marines biggest lacking is probably in vehicles. For example the Army has better Abrams, the EFV keeps getting delayed and could be better designed, and the Marines don't yet have the same level of digital communication and control the Army does.

However they have been working on getting new/better trucks and HMMWVs, modernizing their Abrams, and eventually there is supposed to be a replacement for their LAVs. Their air capabilities have also been improved with the AH-1Z, UH-1Y, and V-22A.