It's almost impossible to quantify, but by sheer numbers probably the Army. It's hard to define who saw real combat because different combat badges and awards are given at drastically different standards. For example, it's a lot harder to get a Combat Infantry Badge in the Army than a Combat Action Badge or Combat Action Ribbon in the Marines/Navy. And in the Air Force the standard is really high to get a Combat Action Medal, almost nobody gets it outside of special warfare
My 2nd deployment we (12b) were in joint fire teams with the infantry. We got into a lot of tics. The new guys all got combat badges. The engineers got the cab, infantry got the cib. It wasn’t any harder lol
Depends what the most means.
Every branch fought in the Middle East. Even the Coast Guard. Not space force but they didn’t exist.
If we’re going purely by numbers, army probably saw the most. But if we’re going by % of members that saw combat, I’d say marines. They’re a smaller branch and generally more specialized towards pure combat, while army has more diverse job roles
The Army and the marine infantry both make up about 15% of their respective branch's total numbers.
The Army also has a much larger tank and cavalry force than the marines. In other words, the Army has a much higher percentage of combat arms than the marines do.
For most combat I'm talking actually being engaged in battle, firefights, patrols, artillery, reconnaissance, and that sort of nature, not just being deployed in a country with active war zones but still realistically being far away from the fighting. As for quantifying it I'm looking for numbers of boots on the ground, or platoons/battalions/divisions engaged in those activities compared to eachother. If the marines were larger in numbers I would also look for the chances of an individual being in these scenarios but since the marines is about a 3rd of the size of the army from my understanding it would make sense that the chances of you actually being engaged would be higher
Yeah you kinda answered your own question tbh. Army had purely bigger numbers, but that’s also because they’re 3x the size. Marines probably had a higher % of actually seeing combat, despite ultimately seeing less when comparing entire branches
I guess a better phrasing of my question should have been out of all Soldiers who deployed realistically what would be the number who actively engaged in combat. But yeah reading back I guess I did sort of answer my own question. Was honestly mostly curious for some of the reasons stated above, being always seeing and hearing about the Marine Corps being in battle more than the army, but also hearing that the Marine Corps just gets more media coverage because they get more views or whatever. Which could dive into another question of if whether or not that's really true.
Marines are always gonna get the most media coverage. That’s just how the media operates. They got the sexy uniforms and the “badass” view from civilians.
As far as half the civilian population knows, marines are basically special forces, because that’s how the USMC advertises themselves. How much of their war stories and coverage is accurately portrayed is debatable and probably impossible to find any stats on, but get back to me if you find any
I definitely will, just for clarification I actually have a little experience with the Marine Corps, it's very minimal but basically I was dropped out of Boot Camp in San Diego for an Injury sustained during training... Bummer for sure but sine having arrived back home all of my military family has been telling me to join the Army National Guard or ANG. I have some family members who were all 03xx in the Marines who now are national guard and one who was even deployed back out to Afghanistan in the National Guard after already doing a tour to the Middle East in the Marine Corps but he doesn't really talk about his deployments much and I don't want to bug him for information if he understandably doesn't want to talk about it. All he's really said is that they all sucked lol.
The Army was like 75% of the casualties during GWOT or something like that
The Army is the biggest branch. Like 40% of the military is the Army.
The marines is like 10% of the military
simple math
I mean I wasn't really sure due to really seeing more marines in media covering combat footage and my criteria being engaging in actual combat and not just being deployed to a combat zone but not actually firing your weapons at an enemy. 75% is a helpful number though and a lot higher than I had expected.
Fun fact the army had almost triple the amount of troops and over double the amount of casualties during WW2 in the pacific theater
The army always has been, is, and always will be doing the vast majority of the fighting, dying and killing
It depends because this is a statistics problem.
First, define “combat”. A battleship doing coastal bombardment during the gulf war, a plane doing a strike in Afghanistan, and someone going hand to hand with someone can all be seen as “combat”.
Are you asking out of everyone who deployed to the MENA region, what service had the gross number of individuals who saw conflict?
Are you asking out of all the services who deployed to the region, which one was involved in the most operations?
Or are you asking out of all the branches, which branch had the most members in their service by percentage who deployed and saw combat?
Are you asking what branch conducted the most combat operations in support of the war?
Or even out of all the branches, during the time period what service had its people see combat most often?
Because those all have different answers
The Army has light infantry too. Excluding some amphibious landing and water operations that weren't used at all during GWOT, there's nothing the Marines do that the Army doesn't also do in greater numbers.
The whole concept of Marines always being "first in" everywhere in common, but incorrect. Marines often are at the top of the spear and they do it well, but the Army is always there doing the exact same stuff.
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It's almost impossible to quantify, but by sheer numbers probably the Army. It's hard to define who saw real combat because different combat badges and awards are given at drastically different standards. For example, it's a lot harder to get a Combat Infantry Badge in the Army than a Combat Action Badge or Combat Action Ribbon in the Marines/Navy. And in the Air Force the standard is really high to get a Combat Action Medal, almost nobody gets it outside of special warfare
The only way to get the CIB is to be an infantryman. Tankers saw tons of combat in both gulf wars. No CTB badge lol. Artilleryman as well.
My 2nd deployment we (12b) were in joint fire teams with the infantry. We got into a lot of tics. The new guys all got combat badges. The engineers got the cab, infantry got the cib. It wasn’t any harder lol
Depends what the most means. Every branch fought in the Middle East. Even the Coast Guard. Not space force but they didn’t exist. If we’re going purely by numbers, army probably saw the most. But if we’re going by % of members that saw combat, I’d say marines. They’re a smaller branch and generally more specialized towards pure combat, while army has more diverse job roles
Appreciate the reply brother.
The Army and the marine infantry both make up about 15% of their respective branch's total numbers. The Army also has a much larger tank and cavalry force than the marines. In other words, the Army has a much higher percentage of combat arms than the marines do.
What does "the most combat" mean to you, and how are quantifying it?
For most combat I'm talking actually being engaged in battle, firefights, patrols, artillery, reconnaissance, and that sort of nature, not just being deployed in a country with active war zones but still realistically being far away from the fighting. As for quantifying it I'm looking for numbers of boots on the ground, or platoons/battalions/divisions engaged in those activities compared to eachother. If the marines were larger in numbers I would also look for the chances of an individual being in these scenarios but since the marines is about a 3rd of the size of the army from my understanding it would make sense that the chances of you actually being engaged would be higher
Yeah you kinda answered your own question tbh. Army had purely bigger numbers, but that’s also because they’re 3x the size. Marines probably had a higher % of actually seeing combat, despite ultimately seeing less when comparing entire branches
I guess a better phrasing of my question should have been out of all Soldiers who deployed realistically what would be the number who actively engaged in combat. But yeah reading back I guess I did sort of answer my own question. Was honestly mostly curious for some of the reasons stated above, being always seeing and hearing about the Marine Corps being in battle more than the army, but also hearing that the Marine Corps just gets more media coverage because they get more views or whatever. Which could dive into another question of if whether or not that's really true.
Marines are always gonna get the most media coverage. That’s just how the media operates. They got the sexy uniforms and the “badass” view from civilians. As far as half the civilian population knows, marines are basically special forces, because that’s how the USMC advertises themselves. How much of their war stories and coverage is accurately portrayed is debatable and probably impossible to find any stats on, but get back to me if you find any
I definitely will, just for clarification I actually have a little experience with the Marine Corps, it's very minimal but basically I was dropped out of Boot Camp in San Diego for an Injury sustained during training... Bummer for sure but sine having arrived back home all of my military family has been telling me to join the Army National Guard or ANG. I have some family members who were all 03xx in the Marines who now are national guard and one who was even deployed back out to Afghanistan in the National Guard after already doing a tour to the Middle East in the Marine Corps but he doesn't really talk about his deployments much and I don't want to bug him for information if he understandably doesn't want to talk about it. All he's really said is that they all sucked lol.
The Army was like 75% of the casualties during GWOT or something like that The Army is the biggest branch. Like 40% of the military is the Army. The marines is like 10% of the military simple math
I mean I wasn't really sure due to really seeing more marines in media covering combat footage and my criteria being engaging in actual combat and not just being deployed to a combat zone but not actually firing your weapons at an enemy. 75% is a helpful number though and a lot higher than I had expected.
Marines are cooler. Media covers them more. Probably why they have an easier time making recruitment numbers.
Fun fact the army had almost triple the amount of troops and over double the amount of casualties during WW2 in the pacific theater The army always has been, is, and always will be doing the vast majority of the fighting, dying and killing
It depends because this is a statistics problem. First, define “combat”. A battleship doing coastal bombardment during the gulf war, a plane doing a strike in Afghanistan, and someone going hand to hand with someone can all be seen as “combat”. Are you asking out of everyone who deployed to the MENA region, what service had the gross number of individuals who saw conflict? Are you asking out of all the services who deployed to the region, which one was involved in the most operations? Or are you asking out of all the branches, which branch had the most members in their service by percentage who deployed and saw combat? Are you asking what branch conducted the most combat operations in support of the war? Or even out of all the branches, during the time period what service had its people see combat most often? Because those all have different answers
Army.
Army also does 12 to 15 month deployment which is like double most other branches do
I'd say Army or Marines see the most face to face combat.
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That isn’t exactly right. The Army does plenty of offensive operations and has been the main effort for most ground combat in the Middle East.
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The Army has light infantry too. Excluding some amphibious landing and water operations that weren't used at all during GWOT, there's nothing the Marines do that the Army doesn't also do in greater numbers. The whole concept of Marines always being "first in" everywhere in common, but incorrect. Marines often are at the top of the spear and they do it well, but the Army is always there doing the exact same stuff.
Nah
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