Naval Infantry

[Blue Ghost]

Okay, from the Imperial Army thread we revisited an old concept of a ship's crew serving as armed soldiers. This concept has always been around, but, officially at least, seems to have escaped Traveller. In the last few posts we started with some of the ship's crew being trained and given bare bones equipment for infantry duty.

I can picture Imperial Naval Infantry (INI) as being an unintentionally (quiet, nearly unrecognizeable) service or branch of the IN. Being given perhaps some bare bones armor, a helmet, ACRs or LASER weapons. Just my impression.

Who has thoughts on this?

*EDIT*
Imperial thoughts? Vargr, Zhodani, Solomani, Darrien thoughts? Anybody else? Droyne? Client states or local navies? Hivers?

 

[aramis]

If we follow the US and UK model, they're mostly gunners mates and botswains mates as NCO's, and able seamen. Not specialist rated as infantry.

The Soviets had a special force for Naval Infantry... naval rank titles are the only reason they're not called Marines in English.

They didn't escape, either - Naval Infantry skills in CT are on the Service Skills table: Forward Observer, Blade Combat, Gun Combat, Gunnery, Vacc Suit...

They're overlooked a bit in Bk5... but not absent, either... a mixture of Navy Life and Line/Crew tables gives the combat skills, Gunnery and shore life round them out.

 

[Blue Ghost]

That's interesting. I think it would make a fine JTAS article, and a nice little PDF for all systems.

 

[Carlobrand]

Book 5
Ship's Troops: "Most ships over 1,000 tons have a marine (or military) contingent aboard which ranges in size from a squad to a regiment. Such contingents range from three per 100 tons to three per thousand tons."

Okay, those are the Marines.

Service Crew: "The ship itself may have a requirement for other sections which provide basic services, including shops and storage, security (especially if there are no ship's troops aboard), maintenance, food service, and other operations. Such personnel are drawn from the crew branch if no other appears appropriate. Allow two crew per 1000 tons of ship; three per 1000 tons if there are no ship's troops."

And there's your Naval Infantry - about one person per thousand tons in the larger ships, per rules. That's the number you'd use if someone tried to board you and you didn't have your own Marine contingent to resist. That's not necessarily all the men who'd have the needed training; that's the men armed, armored and ready to repel boarders.

(I've never liked the boarding rule - if someone's boarding, I'd arm everyone who isn't actually keeping the power going and the air fresh. A guy in a vacc-suit's not quite the same as an armored fighter, but 1 per 50??)

Book 5 implies anyone but engineering/technical and medical have a shot at the training. Figure a given character (in the appropriate branch) has roughly a 50:50 shot at getting gun training before completing a 4-year term, and that your enlisted will run the gamut from trainees to able spacehands and petty officers. So figure from a third to a half of your non-Engineering, non-Medical crew know how to handle a gun reasonably well. However, you don't want to take all of them away from their duty stations. Even if you keep the machinery running, people will get mighty hungry if your kitchen staff's ashore fighting rioters.

Sail ships seemed to take roughly a fifth to a quarter of the crew. Aramis' link had an item about 2200 t. WW-II destroyers (crew ~330-350) fielding two squads of 10 each, or about 20 men total, and the same link spoke to destroyers in the '60's (about the same crew) being able to field a squad of 13 men.

Traveller ships use a lot of tech - a lot fewer men to draw from. The Supplement-9 destroyer escorts only have 14-16 crew total, the 3000 ton destroyer has 33 (I think - Supplement-9 has some inaccuracies). You're in a 40-50 thousand ton cruiser before you have as many crew as a WW-II destroyer or a Napoleonic 4th-rater, so that 1 per thousand-dTon bit's in the ballpark.

So, say you're captaining a Fer de Lance, 1000 dT. Book-5 says you've only got 1 Ship's Troop - but Book-5 also says you're under Book-2 crew rules, so that doesn't apply. Book-2 says you have a pilot (presumably captain), navigator, 9 engineers, 1 Medic, 4 Gunners (Supplement-9 is off). You've probably got your navigator/XO and a couple of gunners who are qualified to handle a firefight. (I assume we're not doing the Captain Kirk bit.)

Captain a PF Sloan, with a crew of 40 ... er, 62 if you follow Book-5 rules (how did Supplement-9 get those numbers??). Oops - 63 with the ship's doctor. You've got a 5-man security detail and 41 other crew who aren't engineers or medical. Figure 14-20 know how to handle themselves in a firefight. So, you've got 5 designated Naval Infantry and another 14-20 that you could order down in an extreme, "The Ambassador wants every spare body now," situation - but you'd best hope you can get most of them back within a few days because the engineer's mates resent having to peel potatoes, the flight officer's had to tag out one of the boats for lack of repairs, the rest of the engineering crew are too busy maintaining the drives shorthanded to cover the work orders for plumbing and air filtration, and it's going to be a choice between lasers and the meson screen if you have to fight.

On the positive side, what are the odds of a Zhodani cruiser showing up around Ruie while your men are planetside helping the Ambassador and his handful of embassy Marines protect the embassy from rioters?

A cruiser can put together a platoon for Naval Infantry. A dreadnought can put together a full company. And of course, that force can be supplemented if the ship's willing to put a bit of a crimp in its readiness.

Your gunners also have a role with your Naval Infantry detachment, acting as forward observer for the ship's weapons. In the gunpowder era, ship's gunners would also act as artillerists for light artillery brought ashore with the infantry. In the Traveller era, there's probably not enough similarity between a ship's laser fired at a target a half-light-second off and a turret-mounted laser being fired over open sights for the gunner to be of value. At any rate, Book-5 gunnery skill and Book-4 heacy weapons skill are different skills.

 

[rancke]

Book 5
Ship's Troops: "Most ships over 1,000 tons have a marine (or military) contingent aboard which ranges in size from a squad to a regiment. Such contingents range from three per 100 tons to three per thousand tons."

Okay, those are the Marines.

Except the '(or military)' who are not the Marines. And, no, I don't know of any other reference to non-Marine shipboard soldiers.

Service Crew: "The ship itself may have a requirement for other sections which provide basic services, including shops and storage, security (especially if there are no ship's troops aboard), maintenance, food service, and other operations. Such personnel are drawn from the crew branch if no other appears appropriate. Allow two crew per 1000 tons of ship; three per 1000 tons if there are no ship's troops."

And there's your Naval Infantry - about one person per thousand tons in the larger ships, per rules. That's the number you'd use if someone tried to board you and you didn't have your own Marine contingent to resist. That's not necessarily all the men who'd have the needed training; that's the men armed, armored and ready to repel boarders.

Um, no, that's the number you need to perform maintnance and man guns if you don't have any marines to do some of that work. No doubt they're also (a portion of them, anyway) the people you can best spare to repel boarders, but I doubt they'd be armed, armored, and ready to repel boarders until boarders become imminent and they are ordered to suit up and arm themselves.

The difference between the 1 per thousand you get extra if there are no shipboard troops and the 3 (or more) per thousand shipboard troops would be the ones that were suited up and armed from the beginning of a battle.

Traveller ships use a lot of tech - a lot fewer men to draw from. The Supplement-9 destroyer escorts only have 14-16 crew total, the 3000 ton destroyer has 33 (I think - Supplement-9 has some inaccuracies). You're in a 40-50 thousand ton cruiser before you have as many crew as a WW-II destroyer or a Napoleonic 4th-rater, so that 1 per thousand-dTon bit's in the ballpark.

I think there is room for a considerable difference between generic figures derived from a set of rules designed to cover everything and specific examples. A 1250T Kinunir has 11 naval officers, 35 ratings, and 34 marines. Granted, the crew list is pre-HG, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't conform any too well with Book 2 manning rules either.

So, say you're captaining a Fer de Lance, 1000 dT. Book-5 says you've only got 1 Ship's Troop - but Book-5 also says you're under Book-2 crew rules, so that doesn't apply. Book-2 says you have a pilot (presumably captain), navigator, 9 engineers, 1 Medic, 4 Gunners (Supplement-9 is off). You've probably got your navigator/XO and a couple of gunners who are qualified to handle a firefight. (I assume we're not doing the Captain Kirk bit.)

The Fer-de-Lance has no shipboard troops at all. And with a crew of only 14, it seems to be two man under strength. Which is either a design error (the writers of FS made a good number of those), or the Imperial Navy isn't following the Book 2 manning rules slavishly.

In "reality" the Fer-de-Lance probably have some disadvantages from its under-manning that is below the resolution of the game rules.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Um, no, that's the number you need to perform maintnance and man guns if you don't have any marines to do some of that work. No doubt they're also (a portion of them, anyway) the people you can best spare to repel boarders, but I doubt they'd be armed, armored, and ready to repel boarders until boarders become imminent and they are ordered to suit up and arm themselves.

Um, yes. We are discussing Naval Infantry - sailors who ordinarily have other duties but who are trained as infantry and can sub in as infantry in a pinch. Otherwise known as, ..."the number you need to perform maintnance and man guns if you don't have any marines to do some of that work..." and "the people you can best spare to repel boarders..." They ain't Marines, they'll never be Marines, but they know which end of the gun to point at the enemy and how to reload it when the time comes.

I think there is room for a considerable difference between generic figures derived from a set of rules designed to cover everything and specific examples. A 1250T Kinunir has 11 naval officers, 35 ratings, and 34 marines. Granted, the crew list is pre-HG, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't conform any too well with Book 2 manning rules either.

Unfortunately, if one wishes to deal with generic concepts, one is obliged to resort to generic figures. Kinunir's a nice little ship, but one ship doesn't give us much data from which to extrapolate other cases - unless they happen to be 1200 ton escorts with jump-4 and 4g.

The Fer-de-Lance has no shipboard troops at all. And with a crew of only 14, it seems to be two man under strength. Which is either a design error (the writers of FS made a good number of those), or the Imperial Navy isn't following the Book 2 manning rules slavishly.

In "reality" the Fer-de-Lance probably have some disadvantages from its under-manning that is below the resolution of the game rules.

Yup, Supplement 9 is off (as I noted), and strength is 16 men. I listed the Book-2 complement. And if your Captain wants to send someone out on a daring mission, there's only a couple or three people on board who have a snowball's chance in a firefight, and their chances aren't actually very good, but there it is.

 

[rancke]

Um, yes. We are discussing Naval Infantry - sailors who ordinarily have other duties but who are trained as infantry and can sub in as infantry in a pinch.

Oh, my mistake. I thought naval infantry were shipboard soldiers that were paid by the navy and organized as a separate branch, not sailors (or in this case, spacers) who had been run through an infantry course and whose day job was running the ship.

Unfortunately, if one wishes to deal with generic concepts, one is obliged to resort to generic figures. Kinunir's a nice little ship, but one ship doesn't give us much data from which to extrapolate other cases - unless they happen to be 1200 ton escorts with jump-4 and 4g.

The point I'm making is that despite what HG claims not every 1250T escort has a crew of 18 (Or whatever the correct number is according to HG). Which suggests that it is, perhaps, a mistake to deal exclusively with generic concepts. Use it to establish a baseline, sure, but don't let yourself be restricted to the generic figures alone.

(Mind you, as far as shipboard troops are concerned, the generic figures cover quite a spread; from 3 per thousand to 3 per hundred -- the 34 marines in the Kinunir are actually within the HG rules (Can't say the same for the 46 naval critters)).


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

/munches nachos and drinks margarita while waiting for marines to be compared to the Sacred Band of Thebes.

 

[Enoki]

One typical use for "naval infantry" isn't so much as infantry but rather as support troops. While some nations used them as infantry in a pinch most used them instead to man heavy weapons in support of Marines.

This would include (historically) manning artillery and machineguns. In a Traveller setting I could see them bringing the equivalent to a battlefield to support marines off their ships. I could also see them supplying most of the construction engineers, technicians, and such for support and logistic operations too. Their use as infantry would be limited to only the most dire situations as they would not have the regular practice marines or soldiers would have.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Excellent posts between Carlo and Ranke. I vaguely remember the percentage rules. Our house ruling back in the day was essentially you could muster a fire team of a half dozen at least, regardless of what the rules say.

As was pointed out, you have men who have been through basic. They know which end of a gun is which, and how to use it. They aren't hardened combat vets, they're ad-hoc infantry soldiers. Say you're streamlined DD has landed on world with standard gravity and atmosphere. Regrettably it's a police state, and something like the Iranian riots from a couple years back are sprouting up. Say you have a crew of two dozen, but you have 8 x ACRs, 2 x LASER carbines, a few sidearms, and a dozen all purpose air tight environmental combat suits with reflec sewn in.

You're on a client world between the Imperium and, hell, I don't know ... Aslan space. The Imperial ambassador is formerly asking you to help guard ambassadorial palace. You take what you got, and go forth.

You might order your ship to lift off after you leave, and the skeleton crew on board might not get to changing the air filters and evacuating the septic tanks, so the ship's water and atmosphere is going to have a certain "tinge" for a time, but there you go. Meanwhile, you're going to lead your twelve man through the streets to the ambassador's digs, and look mean with your untested ad-hoc grunts.

I think the rules are, like most of CT, a general guideline for those who really need some kind of guidance. I think common sense dictates that you're going to arm whoever you can, and keep your ship secure by keeping the really skilled folks on board with the ship locked up tight (preferably in orbit, or in orbit around another world if you're that concerned).

The Russians, as an extreme example, have a real tradition of naval infantry, thought it would be more appropriate to suggest that they're more like marines, but the regiments (initially at least) were created from decommissioned or stricken vessels (sunk, or otherwise destroyed or inoperable)). The regiments were formed from every crewman; from the engineer's mate to the cook to the dispensary medical guys, up all the way through to the bridge crew. If you were on a ship that was sunk, survived, had nothing else to do, no other ships needed you, then you and your crew mates were given guns and formed into a unit.

This may be an area where each fleet might have its own perogative as to how many crew might be needed for action of some kind. Dulinor's commanders might be a little paranoid about their own mutinying, so there might be low numbers of sidearms on board. Norris on the other hand, being a little more forward thinking and practical, might order or let ships' COs have high numbers of personal weapons for the event of boarders or shore action.

Good thread. Keep it going.

 

[Carlobrand]

...The point I'm making is that despite what HG claims not every 1250T escort has a crew of 18 (Or whatever the correct number is according to HG). Which suggests that it is, perhaps, a mistake to deal exclusively with generic concepts. Use it to establish a baseline, sure, but don't let yourself be restricted to the generic figures alone.

Depends. If you're the game master, do whatever looks right. Kinunir's marine complement is more useful than Fer de Lance, for example. I can't think of any other situation where something like this might come up, but if you were working with others on a more equal level - codesigning, campaign warfare, stuff like that - then mutually agreed rules are a necessity, though of course they could be mutually agreed house rules.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Depends. If you're the game master, do whatever looks right. Kinunir's marine complement is more useful than Fer de Lance, for example. I can't think of any other situation where something like this might come up, but if you were working with others on a more equal level - codesigning, campaign warfare, stuff like that - then mutually agreed rules are a necessity, though of course they could be mutually agreed house rules.

Just thinking outloud here, it might be the kind of thing that GURPS would want hard rules for, since GURPS Traveller tends to define a lot of details for its setting. That as opposed to CT, MT or even T4, where rules vary in scope and importance.

If you want to get really picky about rules, then you might want to factor in a planets law level and government type, assuming an Imperial run world--but the same would apply to local navies as well.

 

[aramis]

Hans,

Naval Infantry refers to two somewhat divergent concepts...
1) The dedicated blue-jacket specialist infantryman.
2) The sailor with additional duty as infantry.

Marine ship's troops are a special type of group #1.
The USN has both modes... mode 1 is the SEALs & NECC, and mode 2 is the standard landing party and boarding party teams aboard (normally boatswain's mates and gunner's mates) drawn from ship's crew.

And while it's rare for a navy to have both mode 1 and a separate marine corps as ships troops, for some time, the US did so.

There is thus plenty of room for all three in Traveller.

 

[rancke]

Naval Infantry refers to two somewhat divergent concepts...

1) The dedicated blue-jacket specialist infantryman.
2) The sailor with additional duty as infantry.

Yes, I see. I was just confused. My naval knowledge derives mostly from Napoleonic sea warfare fiction, where there is no distinction between the sailor and the sailor with additional duty as infantry. If Hornblower needs a shore party, he has his first lieutenant tell off a number of sailors. He doesn't have a sub-section of the crew that is formally pre-designated as the ones who who go (Though no doubt his lieutenant selects the shore party based partly on their skills and partly on how valuable the are to the ship).

EDIT: I see from the reference you gave in the Imperial Army thread that I had gotten the wrong idea from my readings. Regulations required a specific number of men in the crew to be exercised as naval infantry. So the distinction did exist back then too.

(Someone should edit Wikipedia about this. 'Naval infantry' simply redirects to 'Marine'.)


Hans

 

[aramis]

Keep in mind, Hans, the USN manuals I've referenced are Spanish-American War through WWII (tho' most of the information is in the 1981 edition of the LPM, too), not the Napoleonic era... but the Colonial Marines date 1775-1783, and the USMC 1797 in practice and 1798 on paper... in preparation for the war with France. And the USMC was never "just ship's troops" but always an amphib assault force. Hence the need for naval infantry.

 

[Carlobrand]

Keep in mind, Hans, the USN manuals I've referenced are Spanish-American War through WWII (tho' most of the information is in the 1981 edition of the LPM, too), not the Napoleonic era... but the Colonial Marines date 1775-1783, and the USMC 1797 in practice and 1798 on paper... in preparation for the war with France. And the USMC was never "just ship's troops" but always an amphib assault force. Hence the need for naval infantry.

Going over your link,

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/naval_infantry.htm

it is intriguing that we're engaging in some of the same debates about the Naval Infantry and Marines as have been debated over the past couple of centuries. I especially like two bits:

"In 1889 the Secretary of the Navy appointed a board, headed by Commodore James Greer, to examine shipboard organization and landing party practices. The Greer Board took the position that ships crews should handle all evolutions. It recommended removal of the marine ship guard from naval vessels. The Secretary of the Navy did not accept this recommendation, but Board member Lieutenant Fullam began to lead a campaign over the next decade and a half to remove marines from ships. Most of the uniformed US Navy leadership supported Fullam. The campaign dragged on until 1908, when President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 969 redefining the Marine Corps duties to exclude ship guard and other on-board duties. Congress quickly reversed this decision."

Roosevelt's Executive Order 969 attempted to take marines off ships and relegate them to defense of shore installations and to fielding expeditionary forces, leaving shipboard security and the occasional landing party to the naval infantry.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_969

and,

"... Introduction of steam and complex gun systems also made the problem more difficult. Sailors were really required aboard ship in order to work and maintain it. In the sail navy, sailors were largely interchangeable and there were few specialists. The new steel, steam, navy was a different organization. Sailors were specialists and ships operation was more complex. ... Sufficient men, with the right skills, were necessary to remain on board in order to maintain and fight the ship ..."

which accounts for the much smaller proportion of naval infantry on WW-II ships and succinctly states the problem we face in Traveller.

 

[Mithras]

We had this really good thread going on the same topic a couple of years ago:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=23955&highlight=shipboard+troops

 

[Blue Ghost]

I completely forgot about that thread. Will read more of it later.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Okay, I read through the USN Naval Infantry thread. Interesting stuff. Somewhat different form the discussion here, but more or less the same.

I think someone brought up the concept of using "below decks" personnel; that is guys who have stuff to do (laundry, cook, clean house, and the like) getting a rifle tossed to them and being ordered on deck. That, verse using gunner's mates or guys familiar with how weapons work as ad-hoc soldiers.

Since everyone goes through basic, what advantage is there in using gunners' mates over regular crew?

 

[Orr]

Since everyone goes through basic, what advantage is there in using gunners' mates over regular crew?

Practice, constant practice.