In Vietnam, why did the marine corps have to work with obsolete WWII and Korena War equipment?

Question

I was in two corp US Army Abn Inf (central highlands) and we had modern warring machinery. The marines were on the northern lines in I corp and worked with out-of-date weapons. Why did'nt the government give them high tech modern weaponry as well?

Answer 1

We had M16's though it took a little longer to get everyone equipped. The Marine Corps has always seemed to pride itself on doing more with less. We did have some ridiculous situations, like when all the machine guns in a rifle company were shot so machine gunners used M14's with full auto and taped magazines together. You guys had nicer flak jackets too...we always tried to beg borrow and steal them.
Welcome home brother!

Answer 2

The army is a bureaucracy, and the best thing to do may not get past the committees that decide...

I had a high school teacher tell me that, in the 60s while serving stateside, actually got a ww2 food ration pack. Another vietnam vet teacher still had his ww2 vintage p-38 can opener.

The viet cong & north vietnamese fought with old WW2 Japanese stuff. WW2 gave us lots of leftovers.

Sometimes the old stuff is still the best design. The P-51 fighter was used as an air force fighter by the Phillapines until the 1980s.

In the first gulf war, the US Army took a large caliber rifle out of storage for the troops to use. Don't know the name but it was designed in WW1.

There were stashes of civil war stuff in storage found at least 40 years ago. I'm sure there's more old stuff.

Answer 3

The Army gets paid more than the Marines, the Marines are still a Department of the Navy, so the Government thinks that the Army should be getting their own equipment and forget the Marines because they are under the Navy. It is still the same today, when deployment comes only Marines with combat jobs can get Camelpaks the rest have to go buy thier own. In the Army EVERYBODY gets camelpaks even secretaries and stuff like that

Answer 4

Well,the new rifle of the Vietnam era was the M-16, and it faced alot of opposition, because it was a signifigantly lower calliber than older weaponry used by the U.S., and the government wasn't neccessarily expecting another war, After World War 2, and then Korea, the world was looking for peace, not new weapon. The same type of problems occured as we went into World War 2. Everyone was looking for peace after the Great War, and the advancement of military technology came to a halt. We went into WW2 with obselete tanks, much smaller and less powerful than the German standard. It took years to come up to snuff. Same issue in 'nam. In short, the military is always slow to change.

Answer 5

There are several possible reasons. It is possible that the government was busy producing new weaponry and had no shortage of troops to whom to give the weapons. That means that they would form new divisions and give them new weapons without upgrading the weaponry of older divisions. They did this so they could have the maximum amount of armed soldiers in Vietnam, not the best weapons overall.

Answer 6

The military still does the same thing yet today Loo k at what a lot of the troops in Iraq are lacking for in equipment at this very moment Typical military top brass way of thinking is if the troops are using them the numbers on their inventory sheets will go down and that does not set well with the numbers crunchers that control the purse strings.

Answer 7

Would it have made a differance to the outcome ? I think not ! You would have still have lost the war !And as for out of date weapons , the Ak 47 used by the vietnamise was designed in 1947 hense the name , and a bad workman always blames his tools !

Answer 8

The Army is the one that decides on most everything regarding equipment, Marines are the last to receive new equipment.

Answer 9

Because that is what the US had...

Our government does not send in the "Queer eyes for the GI's"
and say,

"NO NO NO that juth thimply won't dooo" "EWWW Get it out"

We need all new things for the big muscled men.

And the camo needs some FLOWERRRRRSS! Who ever thaw a field with out flowers!

Answer 10

Cause the marines are the suicide squadron for both the British and American armies - they have high casualties, so what is the point in giving them modern weaponry if they're only going to be able to use it for a few seconds?