Ja said: It’s also interesting to note that a private in the royal marines can take command of a mission out ranking an Army officer who would be subserviant to the Marine, though the respect will carry over, as it should.

That might be overstating it chap. A rank and file Marine can supervise the positioning of army troops subject to his own specialised task, he cannot take command in lieu or otherwise of an army platoon or section. There is a big difference in standards between the British Army Infantry and the Royal Marines but it is not as pronounced as Joe Public actually think. It takes the better part of a year to train a Royal Marine compared to about 6 months for an army infantry soldier but although standards of fitness are higher in the marines the main difference is in operational doctrine and specialisation which is responsible for the bulk of the extra time needed to train a Royal Marine. Make no mistake, army physical fitness standards, particularly for the infantry are very demanding.

Phil 🙂