Erik wrote:gunnergoz wrote:Raiders were commando units, for quick strikes that cost the enemy men, materiel and hopefully initiative, were not trained or configured for seizing and holding ground. It is a fair distinction to make in a simplified game system.
In Burma, Merrill's Marauders held ground. In fact, couple of the teams had a Bastogne experience for quite some time before being relieved
It was a (small) regimental size unit.
It is true that Merrill's Marauders (the 5307th Composite Uinit/Provisional) held ground: but they had no choice but to tough it out or be eliminated. They were created as commandos in the same sense that Marine Raider battalions, US army Ranger battalions and Royal Marine Commandos were. The 5307th CU(P), as a regimental sized unit was a long-range penetration force optimized for jungle warfare. It was not intended to hold ground and thus not equipped as well as a similar-sized infantry unit, thus could not generate as much firepower.
It's use (or more accurately it's abuse by commanding generals in theater) was more akin to how the ETO sometime abused the 1st Special Service Force (a snow/mountain warfare specialized unit) that served in the European theater, seeing much combat in Italy. But the 1SSF differed from the 5307'th Composite Unit in that, when assigned to hold ground, it had some of the organic resources (i.e. heavy weapons like 75mm howitzers and such) assigned to it on an ad hoc basis, enabling the force to generate enough firepower to hold ground for some time. At Anzio, 1SSF on its own held an entire flank of the operation, digging in behind the Mussolini Canal - but this was in hindsight still an egregious misuse of a high value military asset. Shoestring military operations sometimes force command decisions like that.
The bottom line: Commandos were not designed to hold ground, but sometimes were forced to. When they did, they did so with distinction, but often paid a very high price for being given missions they were not really organized and equipped for.
In the Burma case of the 5307th, there was nothing to relieve them with so they had no choice but to tough it out or else face death or a POW camp (and likely death anyway.)
The 1SSF, like the 5307th CU(P), was not designed to hold ground but events and bad command decisions forced these specialized units to attempt missions akin to the airborne and glider units: to infiltrate enemy territory and hold ground until relieved by conventional units.
Commandos (like the Marine Raiders and US army Rangers,) mostly employed in battalion-sized units or smaller, were intended to be a hit and run force from the very outset. The respective Raider/Ranger operations on the Makin raid and the attack on Pointe du Hoc during D-Day at Normandy being classic examples. Their misuse in protracted ground combat against large enemy forces could prove disastrous, e.g. the annihilation of the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions at Cisterna in January, 1944.
The 1st Marine Raider battalion (Edson's Raiders) as employed at Guadalcanal also did succeed in holding some ground temporarily, but paid a heavy price for it. Their commitment was a concession to the fact that the marine force was desperate for fighting power on the front lines. It was often tempting, and often disastrous, to abuse commando units as front line infantry, but sometimes, as noted, there was little choice to the commander at the time.
The bottom line is, commando forces by definition are not equipped or organized to hold ground for any length of time, but rather to strike the enemy and then evade his counter attacks. But historically, events and bad decisions have forced their use in missions that required them to seize and hold ground. The outcome of such misuse tended to reflect great glory on the units involved, but generally at a very high human price.
