B'n FMA (and a comment on Captains)

B'n FMA:
What about the scenario where your unit is 
deployed for all around defence? I don't know 
about anyone else, but I remember seeing my 
infantry unit to this both at the Platoon and 
Company level, and see no reason why it 
couldn't be done at higher levels. Thus I think 
there are conditions where the rear and flank 
attack modifiers should be nullified. I'd think 
you'd be a right mellonhead of a CO if you 
didn't watch your flanks and rear.... and be 
ready with contingency orders to pivot the line, 
bend an end around, or collapse the whole 
thing into an enclosed perimeter if required. 

Captains:
Ship's Captains (the appointment/position) get 
the title Captain. I thought other Captains 
aboard get the rank of "Commodore" not 
"Commander" (ie an honorary bump up is okay, 
bumping down is not). Or is this not the case in 
the USN? I also understood if you had Marine 
Captains aboard, they'd be referred to as 
Majors, but that was only what I thought I 
recalled. 

Oh, and why Marines?
A rapidly deployable force where all members 
are fundamentally capable of operating as 
infantry in a pinch and that is capable of being 
inserted to take and hold ground while 
conventional Army forces are being deployed 
just seems to make sense. It takes a while to 
get M1s to a battlefield. Having a range of 
deployable options, including MEUs, just makes 
sense. 

As to sailors with guns (yikes!), that isn't all that 
bad. In the RCN, the Bosun usually has a 
number of sailors trained in boarding party 
actions which he can take across. They 
specialize in securing their own ship, boarding 
and searching vessels, and if need be, 
commandeering those same vessels. They 
wouldn't be as good as full fledged Marines in a 
fight (lesser firepower) and wouldn't handle 
themselves as well on landing parties (they are 
still swabbies), but they know the sharp end of 
a rifle and are more than capable of coping 
with most boarding actions (defensively or 
offensively). 

But then, Canada has never really had Marines 
that I can think of, so this just makes sense for 
us. If we had Marines aboard, we'd probably 
have a use for them boarding-wise. But the 
other thing is the Bosun and the other 
boarding-trained sailors can do sailor jobs. 
Canadian ships tend to be small. If Marines 
were aboard, they'd have to also do ship duty - 
something like manning the AA guns or close in 
defenses or maybe running the depth charge 
rack. I hear tell that in some time periods, 
Marines have been gun crew for secondary 
batteries on larger battlewagons. That might 
even make sense in 2183. 

-----------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Instructor, CST 6304 (TCP/IP programming for the Internet)
kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca 
http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/CST6304
http://stargrunt.ca/tb/CST6304