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Originally Posted by -{SpoonmaN}-
Oh and out of curiosity how come the US Marine Raiders got disbanded? I thought they had an excellent record during WWII, or was it more that their role was obsolete?
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You need to look at their mission and history. They only conducted one raid,Makin, and it wasn't very sucessful. The rest of their short lifespan they acted as a regular infantry unit. So they were a "special" unit that was taking people away from the regular Inf Regts but were being employed like those infantry units. Only with less firepower.
By 1943, the Corps had expanded as much as they were going to and capped at 500 thousand. The only way to flesh out the needed units was to disband some of the special units formed in the early part of the war. So the Raider, Parachute, Defence and baloon units(and others) were disbanded and those Marines used for the Regiments.
A decent online book from Col Jon T Hoffman of the MC history and Museum Sect at HQMC, can be found here:
http://www.nps.gov/wapa/indepth/extC...30-00/sec1.htm