Tag Archives: 3/6 marines

Locate, close with, and destroy

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You have to love this line of the Camp Lejeune-based 3/6 Marines in a slow-walk live-fire line while underway in the Caribbean.

Official caption:

Sighted In! U.S. Marines with Battalion Landing Team 3/6, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), conduct live-fire drills aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Sep. 17, 2025, during Deployment 25-26. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the President’s priorities.

CARIBBEAN SEA - U.S. Marines with Battalion Landing Team 3/6, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), conduct live fire drills aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Sep. 17, 2025. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the president’s priorities. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tanner Bernat)

USMC Photo by Sgt. Tanner Bernat.

Rifles all seem to be the M27 IAR (HK 416 piston gun assembled in Georgia), almost all are seen with PEQ-15 target pointers, the Squad Common Optic (Trijicon VCOG 1-8×28), and KAC QDSS NT4 suppressors. Also note the near-universal use of a single belt-mounted mag carrier off-hand (in addition to the six on the plate carrier) as well as a left-rear SSE bag/dump pouch.

Formed 14 August 1917, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines deployed to France just two months later and earned its “Teufelhunden” (Devil Dogs) nickname against the Germans, fighting eyeball-to-eyeball at Aisne-Marne, Saint-Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne with the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division– keeping an Indian Head on its patch to mark this time. They also earned a French Croix de Guerre and Fourragère for their war “Over There.”

Reactivated for WWII, the unit initially garrisoned Iceland, then was folded into the 2nd MarDiv for Guadalcanal, the Southern Solomons, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa. Cold War operations included Lebanon, the DR for Power Pack in 1962, Panama for Just Cause, Desert Sheild/Storm, Mogadishu in 94, the Haitan Vacation (also in 94), and numerous trips to the sandbox during GWOT.

As with every Marine unit, their stated mission is to

Locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver or repel the enemy’s assault with fire and close combat

Hitting the Beach: 60 Years Ago Today

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Porto Tramazzu, Sardinia: The first assault wave hits Blue Beach, landing the Teufelhunden of the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines (3/6) for an exercise, on April 27, 1961. The assorted LCVPs are from the Bayfield-class attack transport USS Fremont (APA-44) and the Andromeda-class attack cargo ship USS Muliphen (AKA-61/LKA-61).

The 3rd Battalion had just three years prior taken part in the landings in Lebanon and, four years after this image, would go on to take part in the wildly confusing intervention in the Dominican Republic. (National Archives KN-2431 via NHHC)

The scene looks much like the landings during WWII. Heck both Fremont and Muliphen were built during the war as were likely the landing craft, whose hull numbers look right out of D-Day.

Besides the easy propaganda purpose that such shots sent to Moscow during the Cold War, ops like this were also good fodder for camera crews to shoot high-quality B-roll for Hollywood movies on the war, which always helped as recruiting tools. Sure, the Devils are wearing ODs instead of HBTs or frogskins, but Tinsel Town wouldn’t care.

While the concept of such “wet” landings fell rapidly out of popularity with the USMC in favor of vertical envelopment via helicopter during the 1960s and the following on air-cushioned landings by LCAC, the use of landing craft never fully went away and, in the near future, Marines could once again be getting their feet wet more often.

Devil Dogs a-go-go

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Official caption: “1/8 Marines move up to the front lines to relieve Marines from 3/6, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. USMC Photo May 8 1965.” Note the M14s, canvassed mortar tube, two cases of mortar shells, and the box of C-rats.

DEFENSE DEPT. PHOTO (MARINE CORPS) A19567

As noted by The Tank Museum:

The M274 Mechanical Mule was one of the smallest military vehicles priced. It was intended to move casualties of supplies in jungle terrain where even a jeep couldn’t go, or for airborne units where it could be helicoptered or airdropped. 11,000 were built between 1956 and 1970. The steering column could be tilted right down, allowing it to be “driven” in reverse by a man crawling behind it. Despite its complete lack of armor, it could be used to mount heavy weapons up to the 106mm recoilless, though it was intended merely to move them from place to place.