the distinction between the words military/navy/air force/marines, etc. I have no idea how the military is organized and what it all actually means.

Question

the distinction between the words military/navy/air force/marines, etc. I have no idea how the military is organized and what it all actually means.

In: Other

Answer 1

From the US perspective:

The Air Force has fixed wing planes. The cannot have helicopters; the Army can have helicopters but no (combat) fixed wing aircraft. The Navy also has fixed wing aircraft; the main distinction (from an outsider perspective) is that the Air Force is generally more geared towards collecting intel these days.

The Navy has ships. They also have fixed-wing aircraft, but also have helicopters. They also sometimes do amphibious operations.

The Army is a land army. The Marines are ostensibly focused on amphibious operations, however the Navy now has their own amphibious assault groups so now they’re just a smaller land army and marines are literally just soldiers except they count going to McDonald’s as a deployment.