Re: Marine Contingents

----------
> From: Jared E Noble <JNOBLE2@mail.aai.arco.com>
> To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Marine Contingents
> Date: Friday, November 13, 1998 1:54 PM
> 
> I liked the way it was handled in Traveller - in book 4 (Mercenary),
while
> developing Marine character service history, one of the standard
> assignments you may engage in is Ship's Troops.  Basically most
marines
> were specially trained to perform in this role (among others, of
course!),
> presumably with all that accompanies it.  If that means DC work, fine.

It
> probably means operating in PA, operating as small-units without the
> attached assistance of bigger guns (arty, armor, etc.)  You train for
the
> situation.  I like Tom's suggestion to simply round down when
computing
the
> number of boarding parties.
> 
> Of course if you want to emplace more on your ship, that's great.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thomas Anderson <thomas.anderson@university-college.oxford.ac.uk> on
> 11/13/98 05:06:59 AM
> 
> Please respond to FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
> 
> To:	FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
> cc:	 (bcc: Jared E Noble/AAI/ARCO)
> Subject:  Re: Marine Contingents
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 12 Nov 1998, Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
> > At 12:41 PM 11/11/1998 +0000, Mike Elliott wrote:
> > >Further to my previous email:
> > >Marine Contingents
> >    I never liked this in the first draft of Full Thrust and I don't
like
> it
> > here.  If you want Marines on your ship, buy the space for them. 
Marines
> > take up room and they don't provide much in the way of service for
> combat.
> > In the case of the US Battleships they ran a double five inch mount,
but
> > that was a collateral duty.
> 
> possibly true. i think marines have a lot of uses, from manning
weapons
> (less and less likely as weapons get more specialised, unless their
mount
> is a shipboard version of some artillery piece they use) to shipboard
> security. think how often security crewmen get used in star trek :-)!
> 
> on a more serious note, if we say that marines are powered troops - as
is
> likely; being infantry makes them easier to pack and deploy, and being
> powered is a big force multiplier - then they could be very useful for
> many shipboard tasks, such as damage control in battle and repairs
> afterwards. i am not saying that a marine can do the job of a skilled
> technician, but if each damage control team has a marine in PA to
heave
> mangled girders out of the way, break open fused boxes, etc, it would
be
a
> big help. you could train some of the techs as PA men, but this is a
waste
> of skilled men, as it must be quite hard to do fine work in PA. thus,
some
> non-tech crew with PA training would be handy, so why not go all the
way
> and train them as marines? pack a few gauss rifles and you're away.
> 
> >  There are plenty of small craft that I can think
> > of that face this problem.	The ship designer has to make a trade
off
> > between the weapons he wants the Marines he thinks he needs.
> 
> fair enough; if we say that boarding factors are rounded down when
> computing, then small ships will have no marines. after all, it would
be
> unlikely for a ship with a tiny twenty-man crew to haul along a pair
of
> marines ...
> 
> Tom

Just a little info, I am currently serving on a Canadian Destroyer and
we
carry a 20 man boarding party. However the members on it are drawn from
the
ships company and given special weapons and training (a three week
course,
I start tommorrow) the rest of the time we do our regular jobs.
	Neil