Does the 3I's marine "force" have its own squadrons of fighters and attack craft?
Just curious.
Just curious.
Imperial marine fighter / attack craft
- Thread starter Blue Ghost
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Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Depends as to how you define flying tanks.
Arguably, Marine Corps fighters might only be deployed on dedicated assault carriers, rather than attached to default naval aerospace wings.
Arguably, Marine Corps fighters might only be deployed on dedicated assault carriers, rather than attached to default naval aerospace wings.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Traditionally, I think not, but T5 allows Flight School for Marine and Army, as well as Naval, characters. Still, only the Navy has a Flight Branch.
IMTU they operate vehicles, but spacecraft including small craft generally belong to the Navy.
Edit:
The Spinward Marches Campaign has the 4518th Lift Infantry Regiment include a small flight wing and even a few SDBs. They are not Marines, but are more or less used as Marines, so might resemble Marine organisation.
JTAS#12 has a TOC of a Marine Task Force (battalion?) with some information of the regiment, but no spacecraft mentioned.
IMTU they operate vehicles, but spacecraft including small craft generally belong to the Navy.
Edit:
The Spinward Marches Campaign has the 4518th Lift Infantry Regiment include a small flight wing and even a few SDBs. They are not Marines, but are more or less used as Marines, so might resemble Marine organisation.
JTAS#12 has a TOC of a Marine Task Force (battalion?) with some information of the regiment, but no spacecraft mentioned.
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Interesting. Thanks for the replies.
MThompson016
SOC-12
In GT Ground Forces, it mentions that Marines do operate fighter and COACC squadrons, with the missions of interdiction and close support. Full entry is on page 47.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
No, the Imperial Star Marines are more akin to the UK Royal Marines than the USMC. The IN provides the ships and support spacecraft they may need, the Marines do operate smallcraft which are indistinguishable from gunships (see LBB4 Mercenary to see where I am paraphrasing that from), gunships (gravtanks), and APCs (troop transport gunships (gravAPCs)
According to Adventure 1 the Marines on board can operate the ship's boat - a 6g drive laser and missile rack toting ship's boat is a pretty good assault craft).
And this leads me to the whole flight school contradiction, which is a result of MT changing the rules.
Flight School is for spaceship and starship pilots - those with pilot 1. You do not need pilot skill to operate gunships or assault craft. Heavily armed smallcraft would require ship's boat skill not pilot, while gravtanks and grav APCs require vehicle skill.
By allowing Army and Marine characters to attend Flight School MT/T5 is changing the setting paradigm by indicating that Army and Marines have need for their own starship pilots. HG makes no mention of Marine candidates let alone Army candidates for flight school.
According to Adventure 1 the Marines on board can operate the ship's boat - a 6g drive laser and missile rack toting ship's boat is a pretty good assault craft).
And this leads me to the whole flight school contradiction, which is a result of MT changing the rules.
Flight School is for spaceship and starship pilots - those with pilot 1. You do not need pilot skill to operate gunships or assault craft. Heavily armed smallcraft would require ship's boat skill not pilot, while gravtanks and grav APCs require vehicle skill.
By allowing Army and Marine characters to attend Flight School MT/T5 is changing the setting paradigm by indicating that Army and Marines have need for their own starship pilots. HG makes no mention of Marine candidates let alone Army candidates for flight school.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
No, it says HiTech "Gunships ... are virtually indistinguishable from orbital craft" in the context of "All vehicles have sufficient free-flight performance that ground combat vehicles effectively no longer exist, having merged with aircraft". This applies to the Army just as much as the Marines.
Orbital is not spacecraft. Even the humble air/raft can achieve orbital flight. Small craft are deep space capable, e.g. for flights to moons or distant planets, something grav vehicles are not suited for.
Flight School teaches Ship's Boat in addition to Pilot, at least in CT & MT.
Flight School leads automatically to the Flight Branch, presumably related to the Flight Section of starship crews, i.e. the people who fly small craft. Note that Flight Branch skill table offers Ship's Boat by default and Pilot as a modified result. Flight School is not for starship pilots alone.
The IN may prefer its small craft pilots to be certified for interstellar flight, somewhat similar to, according to what I have heard, the USAF insists its drone operators are qualified pilots.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
That's why I said I was paraphrasing...
Small craft are ground to orbit vessels too, therefore the term orbital applies to them.
It does indeed, but you can fail the roll to learn it, whereas if you graduate you automatically receive pilot 1 as a minimum
Yes it is - if you graduate you receive pilot 1 minimum. You can learn ship's boat skill all over the skill tables. You do not need to be flight branch to learn ship's boat or operate the ship's boat. The flight department is for the flying of the ship, the smallcraft operators are not necessarily part of the flight branch.
I very much doubt that. But then - why is a pilot capable of pressing the buttons for the computer to fly the space/star ship and a smallcarft, and yet a small craft operator can not press the buttons for the computer to fly a space/star ship?
Then along comes someone with JoT skill and can do both
I'm not sure who's argument is supported by what it has to say in the ship construction rules on crew:
So is every small craft 'pilot' an officer? Is every small craft combat craft 'piloted' by an officer?
Sadly for my argument it says in the sentence immediately before the previous quote:
So every navy pilot is an officer and may or may not be a graduate from flight school.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Yes, small craft are orbital capable, but not all orbital craft are spacecraft (small craft).
Hence calling something indistinguishable from orbital craft is not the same as calling it indistinguishable from spacecraft.
In MT graduates of Flight School receives both Ship's Boat-1 and Pilot-1 automatically (but may receive more than Pilot-1).
A bit of an exaggeration: one entry in a (albeit widely available) skill list is not "all over the skill tables".
That is directly counter to the quote you provided:
All small craft pilots are officers, and all officers are from the Flight Branch. Hence all small craft pilots are from the Flight Branch.HG said:
There is no defined "flight department"? Ship's pilots are presumably included in the Command Section, or Bridge Crew in MT. The Flight Section specifically only fly carried craft.
That seems to be the case for small craft, yes.
With A1 I tend to assume that the helmsmen of larger ships are not necessarily officers. Using LBB2, ratings are just as likely as officers to gain pilot skill.
The Command Section specifies two Navigation officers and may (or may not) contain personnel from the Flight Branch. The Navigation officers may presumably be pilots from the Flight Branch, navigators from the Line Branch, or even just watch standing officers supervising the POs actually performing the tasks.
A few years after I joined the forum there was the whole "Yanks in space" argument as to what the third Imperium's military mirrored. During high school and college … it never really came up as such, because, to me at least, it seemed like whatever force was needed would be mustered.
Having said that, I've been told by former marines and their adult offspring that marine drivers are "more aware" of the ground combat situation than a naval aviator tasked with hitting a ground target in a support role. I don't know how true that is, but I was curious if that thinking was part of the Imperium's force structure.
Someone on the the Starfleet games forum quoted either an Indian or Pakistani officer who was confused about the topic. This was years ago, and I'm most assuredly got the quote wrong, but while talking to a high ranking fleet officer he said "I understand why your navy needs an airforce, and why your navy needs its own army, but why does your navy's army need its own air force?" Or something like that.
I guess in GT marine drivers exist. Maybe in MT too. But I guess not in CT.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
The need to control air support came from Marine Corps experiences, in that the local naval commander would prioritize other objectives then that of on the ground commander felt had urgency, such as getting out of Dodge if there were reported sightings of enemy activities.
Similar discussions occur with the relationship of the Air Force and the Army.
My feel from various editions is that GURPS went for the Yanks in Space approach, Classic and MegaTraveller Imperial Stormtroopers, Tee Five CoDominium Marines, while Mongoose seems more of a weathervane.
Similar discussions occur with the relationship of the Air Force and the Army.
My feel from various editions is that GURPS went for the Yanks in Space approach, Classic and MegaTraveller Imperial Stormtroopers, Tee Five CoDominium Marines, while Mongoose seems more of a weathervane.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Challenge accepted
In HG80 the ship's boat skill is available in:
specialist school
flight branch skill - officers only
shipboard life service skill
and for officers only command officer service skill
So enlisted personnel have two ways to acquire the skill while officers have four - a bit more than the one chance you mention.
There is also the option of taking vehicle as ship's boat skill if you match the requirements.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
These are the same places as pilot skill, and for officers only. Note Flight Branch is only possible for officers.
Yes, this is the one available place for enlisted, with over 50% likelihood that the table is available.
A statistical fluke, so unlikely it is insignificant at 0.1% likelihood per year. But, OK, it is technically not impossible.
So enlisted have the one and only realistic chance of getting Ship's Boat skill.
Yes, but only for planetary navies on a planet with size 2- and atmo 0. A combination so likely that there are 3 such asteroid belts with barely noticeable pop and tech, and one HiPop, HiTech belt in the Spinward Marches, i.e. basically Glisten alone. Since Glisten has about 3% of the Imperial population in the Spinward marches this is an unlikely, but much more likely than Specialist School, way of getting Ship's Boat skill.
It seems likely that spacecraft are more common than vehicles in a belter environment.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
I can well believe it, but it probably has more to do with primary training than organisation. The Marine flyers primarily support the jarheads, the Navy top gunners are trained for air combat, some naval attack, perhaps tactical attack, and theoretically, if there is time, ground troop support?
Doesn't the US Army have the same experience with A-10 vs. F-18 AF pilots?
I partially agree with mike wightman and with AnotherDilbert, as both have their share of right:
I agree with mike that the flight school, as presented in both CT and MT, seems more for large ships helm than for fighter pilots (though never forget Pilot can be used as ShipsBoat at -1), and same happens with flight branch tables, but I also agree with AnotherDilbert that ship design section says otherwise, as the flight branch is for subcrafts, not for bridge, so hinting most of Flight Scool graduates will in fact pilot fighters (the most numerous subcrafts in large ships).
As per Marines, they have their own flight branch, and it appeared before MT in JTAS #10 (page 29), I think you forgot another pieceof info in canon: the 4518th.
While not being an Imperial Marines unit per se, it's depicted as being nearly so (even counting as such in FFW) and modelled upen them, and its TOE (according both JTAS #9 and SMC) includes a Fighter Squadron.
I guess this would not be an exception in the Marines TOE, but the only reference I found to it (JTAS #12) is at Task Force (battalion) level (and quite controversial in other points too), so no superior (regiment and up) level units appear, and I guess any such fightes would be in this cathegory...
I agree with mike that the flight school, as presented in both CT and MT, seems more for large ships helm than for fighter pilots (though never forget Pilot can be used as ShipsBoat at -1), and same happens with flight branch tables, but I also agree with AnotherDilbert that ship design section says otherwise, as the flight branch is for subcrafts, not for bridge, so hinting most of Flight Scool graduates will in fact pilot fighters (the most numerous subcrafts in large ships).
As per Marines, they have their own flight branch, and it appeared before MT in JTAS #10 (page 29), I think you forgot another pieceof info in canon: the 4518th.
While not being an Imperial Marines unit per se, it's depicted as being nearly so (even counting as such in FFW) and modelled upen them, and its TOE (according both JTAS #9 and SMC) includes a Fighter Squadron.
I guess this would not be an exception in the Marines TOE, but the only reference I found to it (JTAS #12) is at Task Force (battalion) level (and quite controversial in other points too), so no superior (regiment and up) level units appear, and I guess any such fightes would be in this cathegory...
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
The article about Zhodani Military Organization does not seem to mention fighters, nor Imperial Marines?
See post #4 of this thread?
The article does discuss other resources the regiment has, that can be attached to the task force, but no fighter wing:
JTAS#12 said:
Sotty, I meant JTAS #10, page 29 , i nthe article about MIlitary Accademies when it tals about Marines and introduces his Flight School.
I'll edit JTAS number in my former post. Thanks for noticing
This post was being edited (I guess with the addition under "Edit," that is the relevant part for this) and I'm afraid I ony read the original one ...
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Thanks, I had missed that one.
Yes, that seems conclusive, especially as it was reiterated in MT.
JTAS#10 said:
It was edited yesterday, within a half-hour of being posted. Yes, the bit after "Edit:" was added.
