Imperial marines and battledress

[baithammer]

Not all ships warrant a marine contingent, especially fleet vessels not expected to provide boarding or ground action.

Capital ships on the other hand would have a contingent even if its not expected to provide ground action.

 

[phavoc]

Because they are the Navy personnel trained for those tasks?

The marines are the Navy's specialists at shooting people. Engineers generally makes lousy gunners, gunners generally makes lousy engineers, both generally makes lousy infantrymen.

Guarding a docked ship doesn't take much training. 99.99% of the time it's scut patrol. Which is perfect for your crew to do, and keeps those idle hands out of trouble. An infantryman (or marine in this case) is better utilized where someone is going to shoot at him. Other than that anyone can be given basic training on which end of the weapon to point at someone - assuming you are at the .01% of the time when someone is shooting at you. Unless the specific situation calls for it, it's a waste of valuable manpower (and for this thread, a waste of valuable and expensive battledress).

Who do you want to guard against an Ine Givar attack, a fusion technician, a ship's gunner (expert at controlling meson decay), or a marine trained and equipped for the job?

When the Ine Givar are trying to board ships at dock, I'd want a marine in battledress. But just how often is that happening? Not very much. And I could fix that problem by securing the airlock with a 2nd rating. His weapon is a button that keeps the airlock closed. It's just one of his many secret weapons (nobody expects a Spanish rating!)

Who is standing in the mud, assessing the NBC training and doctrine of the participants' ground units? A Naval officer with a PhD in jumpspace topology?

I would suspect that is done from orbit, or with remote drones. (a) why does anyone need to be in the mud when you have tech, (b) anybody stupid to violate the laws of war just lost, and (c) why in the heck are they assessing anyone's NBC training or doctrine? Imperials let people, megacorps and planets whack on each other all day long if they want - so long as they don't violate the rules of war or interfere with trade.

A megacorp, allegedly, is covertly faking a terrorist attack on a competitor in this system. Do you inform the Imperial courts (a few months away), threaten someone with a meson strike on the nearest city, or send in the fearsome Naval electricians to find and fight the hired mercenaries?

None of the above. Assuming they plan on getting away and running far, far away from their death warrants, they'd be in a ship, so the Navy. And where is the local constabulary in all this? No need for marines (or naval electricians). If I was worried I'd send in IBIS to kill the head of the megacorp as a warning to others. All allegedly, of course. Must have been a grieving father, mother, brother, cousin, etc.

I believe you are thinking of MT Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium, which is bizarre and as you say hopefully decanonised, not CT Fighting Ships which is the basis for the ships in current MgT2 HG.

Yes, I referenced MT version. And MGT1 Fighting ships as well. I agree there was no rhyme or reason for their designs. I am rather sad that most of the books waste so much space on battleships and other large vessels. A PC encountering any of them is dead, dead, dead. The workhorses are going to be the smaller ships, auxilaries and perhaps the odd cruiser or three. If they are going to put the time into building up a fleet, it's sad to waste it on so many odd capital designs.

I'm no expert, but I believe that is way to idealistic.

Grand Admiral Olav hault-Plankwell rebelled against Jaqueline I for no obvious reason, starting a civil war that lasted ~16 years and perhaps 20 Emperors, ending with Grand Admiral Arbellatra Alkhalikoi taking military control.

The Solomani Confederation declared independence, apparently with local fleets, not because of dissatisfaction with the Emperor's person.

Welp, as I said what I can recall has many holes in it. I did not pay too much attention to the dynastic machinations of the Emperor's over time. And it's true the Solomani's seceeded, but they lost the war and their home planet. Core fleet wasn't, I think, dispatched to the front. The Imperium had the tech and the industrial advantage.

Now I DO agree that marines in battledress and army guys in grav tanks and battledress WERE used to take Terra. And that would be an acceptable use of battledress.

 

[Condottiere]

The Naval Regiment has its origins in the Naval landing parties deployed by the Sylean Federation. It has always remained a secondary organization, thoroughly eclipsed by the Imperial Marine Corps. Most Naval Regiment personnel transfer in after a period in Crew branch. They generally assist with most of the duties of that branch when not required in their main role, that of security personnel.

While the Marines provide most of the Navy’s requirements for shipboard troops, the Naval Regiment remains in existence for other purposes. Training detachments exist at all depots and naval bases, where regiment personnel are trained, and more importantly, members of the Gunnery Branch learn the skills they need to form part of a boarding party.

Regiment personnel also form part of the security forces of the depot or base where they are stationed, freeing Marines for other duties. They are often despised by ship crews for this role as the “Shore Patrol” is responsible for ending brawls and other unruly behavior ashore, and does so in a brutally effective manner. For this and their related role as security at naval penal installations, they are sometimes referred to as “brig troopers”.

The second purpose of the Naval Regiment is to provide admirals and high-ranking officers with bodyguards and guards of honor. While such operations are often for show, the Admiralty likes to see its officers protected by troopers dressed in the yellow battledress of the Navy. A few battalions of the Imperial Army are drawn from the Naval Regiment. These are descended from scratch formations thrown together in desperate circumstances during long-ago wars, and remain in being as a matter of tradition. Most are light infantry, though a Naval Artillery battery exists, as do several Naval Engineer formations. While personnel are drawn from the Navy, these forces are now indistinguishable from other units of the Imperial Army except for their insignia.

Sector Fleet implies that Marines are used extensively throughout the Navy as security details, but are not part of the Navy.

 

[Condottiere]

One thing that seems to repeat itself is weight creep for the infantry.

My personal limits were a twenty kilogramme backpack, plus other stuff, and at one point a thirty kilogramme suitcase, simultaneously over uneven ground (hence, no wheeling) which damn near killed me. Thirty one, but the airline closed an eye.

Any powered armour is going to allow the military to load their ground pounders up.

 

[baithammer]

Outside of honor guard, a separate naval regiment would be a rather poor utilization as naval personnel are also used to crew marine ships.

For ships that don't rate a marine detachment, a subset of crew that are firearms qualified could be used for the landing parties and internal security. ( There are advances in the Naval tables for gun training.)

Any powered armour is going to allow the military to load their ground pounders up.

But the battledress when in storage is going to take up a fair amount of space and care will need to be taken in how they are deployed given the limited duration of the power supply. 12hrs base is nothing to sneeze at, but if deployed in field that limitation can bite you.

The other thing that is overlooked is the bulk of the suits themselves with 100kg with a rigid frame and a requirement for entry for deployment. ( Still better than vehicles though.)

 

[Condottiere]

Two problems are exhaustion and encumbrance.

One reason commercial corporations and the military are developing exoskeletons.

What you want is a unrelenting warfighter, like a Terminator.

 

[baithammer]

Which only addresses physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion is very difficult to work around.

 

[phavoc]

Outside of honor guard, a separate naval regiment would be a rather poor utilization as naval personnel are also used to crew marine ships.

For ships that don't rate a marine detachment, a subset of crew that are firearms qualified could be used for the landing parties and internal security. ( There are advances in the Naval tables for gun training.)

Any powered armour is going to allow the military to load their ground pounders up.

But the battledress when in storage is going to take up a fair amount of space and care will need to be taken in how they are deployed given the limited duration of the power supply. 12hrs base is nothing to sneeze at, but if deployed in field that limitation can bite you.

The other thing that is overlooked is the bulk of the suits themselves with 100kg with a rigid frame and a requirement for entry for deployment. ( Still better than vehicles though.)

Ah, someone else who is thinking about the actual putting on/servicing of battledress! As I see it, 1DT is sufficient to store a soldier or marine's battle dress suit and weapon and serve as a recharging station and automated diagnostics unit, and probably it's sufficient to get dressed in. However, a suit tech will need space to work on it, and space for spares, etc. So a battledress morgue (i.e. storage area) will take up quite a bit of room per trooper, which needs to be added in addition to a normal armory. I would say that a morgue would ONLY include battledress suits, their weaponry (plasma or fusion rifles), spares and maintenance. Any other gear (tac missiles, grenades, etc) would have to be stored in the armory section. I suppose you could have an attached armory that would support battledress weaponry for the larger weapons. But this morgue would need to be very close to their vehicle if we are talking about heavily armed troopers. Boarding troops would not normally deploy with these weapons, so that restriction would not need to be present. With multiple morgues you may split up support troops from regular line units. I would hope that senior NCO's and officers would keep their battledress included in the same area as the troop units they are commanding.

Then you have to think about how much space is needed for getting into a drop capsule (for orbital assault troops), and any other equipment that needs to be dropped with them. The capsule launcher and decoys would be considered entirely separate.

 

[Condottiere]

You could have robot mules and drones tagging along, carrying equipment.

But that again, implies an exoskeleton, though not worn by the trooper.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Some thoughts regarding storage and suiting up with battledress..

there’s this image that I’m sure everyone’s seen: https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/gallery/mag/battledress/suiting.jpg. In Mercenary second edition, p.73, there is however an image of a suit of armour in open mode, that made me think of Iron Man’s armour in the movies. The early versions required an entire specialized room to wear or get out of, but recent models can “just open up” with lots and lots of small panels unfolding, enabling the wearer to just walk into, or out of, the suit.

The light suit worn in Iron Man 2 could even fold into a briefcase, and other models have also been seen compacted for storage iirc.

Could perhaps battledress be designed to fold together into a compact storage configuration? How does one suit up into battledress? Is the image I linked above the way it’s done, or can we borrow mechanics from Iron Man?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Some thoughts regarding storage and suiting up with battledress..

TNE lists storage volume for armour, battle dress is about 100 litres (0.1 m³), roughly the size of a human.

 

[baithammer]

Looking at the central supply 2ed it looks like the legs and lower torso are a single unit, the upper torso is another with arms and helmet also separate which would suggest the leg unit might be stored in a kneeling position so the pilot can step into it, then attach the torso unit then arms and finally the helmet.

 

[steve98052]

One famous role for the Marines little mentioned in this thread is orbital assault. That's probably a job for purpose-built orbital assault launch ships. The only one of those that I recall seeing was a module for a Modular Cutter -- probably carried mostly by the armored version of the Modular Cutter, but possibly carried by multi-module ships for situations where one module of orbital assault Marines just isn't enough.

Digression:
How often does it take more than a handful of Marines arriving from the sky in fiery ablation heat shields, and popping out wearing nearly impenetrable assault battle dress, armed with fusion guns? Faced with a choice of turning into a cloud of neutron-activated plasma glowing above a pair of smoking combat boots, or the indignity of surrender, what does the typical foe do?

The wide variety of sizes of Marine contingents aboard various example ships suggests that there are a lot of different roles that the example ships are expected to deliver Marines into.

I would expect that opposed boarding is very rare; the typical boarding action would be inspection of surrendered ships after a victorious space combat. In that situation, the ships are likely to be starships damaged to the point that they can't escape by jump, or non-starships, damaged or not. A non-starship without major damage would probably be an easy boarding -- just enough armor to guard against the occasional crew member who just can't bring himself to comply with orders to cooperate with the boarding party. A heavily damaged ship would be a more dangerous boarding action -- not because of crew resistance but because a heavily damaged warship is a dangerous environment.

Boarding a ship without major damage would probably require Marines mostly to look intimidating and escort surrendered crew to the brig. (The brig in this case might be their own crew quarters with external locks bolted to the doors.) The rest of the boarding party would be Navy technicians preparing the ship for whatever orders the admiral has for the captured ship. The first couple of boarders might be heavily armored for show, but most would likely be wearing nothing heavier than cloth.

Boarding a disabled warship is different; boarders would likely wear vacc suits or other hazardous environment gear. But the boarding action would be pretty similar, with the addition of Navy damage control crews.

Opposed boarding? Battle dress and the toughest weapons that can be used in confined spaces, or maybe lighter weapons if the orders include capturing the ship with minimal interior damage.

There are lots of other jobs for Marines, and they vary widely. Some jobs require battle dress, while others are better suited for dress uniforms.

 

[Condottiere]

Freefall Marines are probably specially trained for that capability.

I imagine their badge is of a flying squirrel.

 

[steve98052]

Freefall Marines . . .
I imagine their badge is of a flying squirrel.]

I'm not sure that a terran creature would have much resonance as a mascot in the distant reaches of the Imperium, but I could imagine it as the symbol of Solomani meteoric assault troops.