Wormhole Assault: MA Style

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:
So yes, the fleet flagship is usually one of its capital ships, and thus generally safer than the escorts. But that's more because those ships have the room and communications to support an admiral and the staff necessary to command a full fleet.

This is what made the whole idea that you couldn't fit any marines on a Roland utterly unbelievable. You have the space for the staterooms of the Squadron CO and his staff of officers and senior NCOs, and the briefing rooms, planning spaces, and flag bridge but nowhere that a platoon of marines can sleep?

Yep. It might not be ideal; but as a field expedient you've got the room.

A 'proper' Marine setup would likely include a larger gym, dedicated armory/armorer area for weapons and armor secure storage, maintenance, and repair; squad sized berthing compartments; a firing range large enough for Marine marksman practice (large enough both in length and in number of simultaneous users); larger mess area (possibly separate mess area); etc.

But you can improvise weapons/armor storage (if nothing else the must have shipping crates and you should be able to lock those. It's not ideal, but throw in some kind of rack to hold those and good enough. And while berthing and messing might not be ideal you can always run up some bunks and slap them into the staff quarters; and run them through the mess in shifts.

A proper firing range might be harder to deal with; but as an expedient you can probably cope with your Marines getting a little rusty on their marksmanship. (Or you might be able to arrange frequent enough access to a groundside or on-station range, or even one on a larger or older ship that has a proper Marine country. Heck for armor marksmanship you could probably throw up a temporary one out on the hull <G>)

Still, it was stupid not to build those flag areas as dual use so they'd be easily convertible if you wanted to embark Marines. Why leave a flag area that's just going to be always empty on 90% of your Rolands? Okay during the war, even if they were convertible, probably 88% of the time they'd be carrying neither flag nor leathernecks; but it'd make them more flexible in their later life -- and shouldn't have added much time or cost to their build.

kzt wrote:This is what made the whole idea that you couldn't fit any marines on a Roland utterly unbelievable. You have the space for the staterooms of the Squadron CO and his staff of officers and senior NCOs, and the briefing rooms, planning spaces, and flag bridge but nowhere that a platoon of marines can sleep?

I don't think it was that they couldn't fit marines aboard if they wanted or needed to, it's that they didn't. The ships were probably built to be as minimal as possible to save on construction and operating costs, so they didn't have the extra life support for an extended Marine squad, nor the extra facilities that Marines would expect, like the aforementioned gym. They did have the internal volume if the design required it, but it wasn't used for such and instead was probably used for more ammo or bunkerage.

On a pinch, they probably could embark them, or survivors from other ships, or prisoners or rescues. But that would not be comfortable and would tax the life support systems. Therefore, you don't want to have marines aboard for an extended period because they'd lose combat effectiveness quickly, not to mention being bored.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:This is what made the whole idea that you couldn't fit any marines on a Roland utterly unbelievable. You have the space for the staterooms of the Squadron CO and his staff of officers and senior NCOs, and the briefing rooms, planning spaces, and flag bridge but nowhere that a platoon of marines can sleep?

I don't think it was that they couldn't fit marines aboard if they wanted or needed to, it's that they didn't. The ships were probably built to be as minimal as possible to save on construction and operating costs, so they didn't have the extra life support for an extended Marine squad, nor the extra facilities that Marines would expect, like the aforementioned gym. They did have the internal volume if the design required it, but it wasn't used for such and instead was probably used for more ammo or bunkerage.

On a pinch, they probably could embark them, or survivors from other ships, or prisoners or rescues. But that would not be comfortable and would tax the life support systems. Therefore, you don't want to have marines aboard for an extended period because they'd lose combat effectiveness quickly, not to mention being bored.

But Rolands had the life support, mess, workout space, food storage, etc built in for the for the 8ish person flag staff. Rolands should be able to support a Marine squad in those 88% of ships (assuming 8 ship squadrons, not 18-24 ship flotillas like traditional DDs) with no issues without any extra mods. Besides, warship life support is at least 100% redundant to take battle damage - adding another dozen bodies in addition to the squad mentioned above (for specific cruises) shouldn't cause an issue.

It's simply a stupid choice.

Theemile wrote:But Rolands had the life support, mess, workout space, food storage, etc built in for the for the 8ish person flag staff. Rolands should be able to support a Marine squad in those 88% of ships (assuming 8 ship squadrons, not 18-24 ship flotillas like traditional DDs) with no issues without any extra mods. Besides, warship life support is at least 100% redundant to take battle damage - adding another dozen bodies in addition to the squad mentioned above (for specific cruises) shouldn't cause an issue.

Just how much staff did Commodore "Bear" Chatterjee have? He was in command of a 5-ship desron, so he didn't need much to support him. The wiki only lists two people in his staff, though we can't trust that to be complete (even if the wiki has no errors, he may have had staff that didn't get a speaking line in the text).

When command of the desron passed to Captain Zavala, he remained his own flag captain for the duration of the conflict. He may have been assigned staff to help him, but my money is on him taking people off their regular duties aboard the ship.

Adding 5 people in a flag staff is very different to adding even 5 marines. The flag staff helps reduce the main ship duties, so they may be compensated by a reduction there (though not 1:1). They also need no additional facilities that the ship wouldn't otherwise have, except maybe a small flag bridge but were flag bridges mentioned aboard Rolands? Marines on the other hand require facilities that the Navy wouldn't otherwise need and their contribution during the regular schedule is minimal to non-existent. Their contribution during battle (damage control) was replaced by improved automation and increased risk.

And what's a Marine fire team useful for? I'd expect a minimum of a platoon aboard each ship, for hopefully a full company aboard a ship squadron. That's 20 people more per ship, plus the Marine Captain and some staff, even if we exclude the HQ section.

It's simply a stupid choice.

That's a subjective assessment.

Given that the Rolands were war-time construction, I can understand why the decision was made.

The drawbacks and disadvantages of such a choice were probably, mostly understood. It's a risk they decided to take, for the duration of the war. Mind you: the war with Haven. The Rolands were not going to conquer/liberate any Havenite systems. They may have become locked into that decision once the shipyards were gone, after the Yawata Strike. And remember they had more ships to deploy, it was just that decided to not escalate the war with the League, so that was was conducted almost entirely with below-the-wall units, and very few BCs at that.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:But Rolands had the life support, mess, workout space, food storage, etc built in for the for the 8ish person flag staff. Rolands should be able to support a Marine squad in those 88% of ships (assuming 8 ship squadrons, not 18-24 ship flotillas like traditional DDs) with no issues without any extra mods. Besides, warship life support is at least 100% redundant to take battle damage - adding another dozen bodies in addition to the squad mentioned above (for specific cruises) shouldn't cause an issue.

Just how much staff did Commodore "Bear" Chatterjee have? He was in command of a 5-ship desron, so he didn't need much to support him. The wiki only lists two people in his staff, though we can't trust that to be complete (even if the wiki has no errors, he may have had staff that didn't get a speaking line in the text).

When command of the desron passed to Captain Zavala, he remained his own flag captain for the duration of the conflict. He may have been assigned staff to help him, but my money is on him taking people off their regular duties aboard the ship.

Adding 5 people in a flag staff is very different to adding even 5 marines. The flag staff helps reduce the main ship duties, so they may be compensated by a reduction there (though not 1:1). They also need no additional facilities that the ship wouldn't otherwise have, except maybe a small flag bridge but were flag bridges mentioned aboard Rolands? Marines on the other hand require facilities that the Navy wouldn't otherwise need and their contribution during the regular schedule is minimal to non-existent. Their contribution during battle (damage control) was replaced by improved automation and increased risk.

And what's a Marine fire team useful for? I'd expect a minimum of a platoon aboard each ship, for hopefully a full company aboard a ship squadron. That's 20 people more per ship, plus the Marine Captain and some staff, even if we exclude the HQ section.

It's simply a stupid choice.

That's a subjective assessment.

Given that the Rolands were war-time construction, I can understand why the decision was made.

The drawbacks and disadvantages of such a choice were probably, mostly understood. It's a risk they decided to take, for the duration of the war. Mind you: the war with Haven. The Rolands were not going to conquer/liberate any Havenite systems. They may have become locked into that decision once the shipyards were gone, after the Yawata Strike. And remember they had more ships to deploy, it was just that decided to not escalate the war with the League, so that was was conducted almost entirely with below-the-wall units, and very few BCs at that.

The original Rolands were designed and between the wars along with the Wolfhound, though I'm uncertain if any were laid down prior to the conflict like the 39 Wolfhounds were.

Besides, I was advocating a squad - or a even a light squad, which could replace the the Flag staff on a 1:1 or slightly basis, not an entire platoon on a daily basis. As for assisting the crew, a Marine squad would take the job of the ship's Armsman, honorguard, and armory functions away from the crew. In addition, Manticore Marines were cross trained in basic ship gunnery and maintenance, so I'm sure they could do shipborn functions to reduce the crew loads.

I have some serious doubts about only 8 people.

They typical occupant of the flag accommodations of a DD is a Destroyer Squadron CO. Who has at least an XO, operations officer (with a plans section), a supply officer (with a supply NCO), a personnel officer & NCO, Intel officer & NCO, a flag comms team, his cook & orderly.

kzt wrote:I have some serious doubts about only 8 people.

They typical occupant of the flag accommodations of a DD is a Destroyer Squadron CO. Who has at least an XO, operations officer (with a plans section), a supply officer (with a supply NCO), a personnel officer & NCO, Intel officer & NCO, a flag comms team, his cook & orderly.

Usually, yes.

But when you can't fit that many, the flag officer may have to do with fewer.

Theemile wrote:Besides, I was advocating a squad - or a even a light squad, which could replace the the Flag staff on a 1:1 or slightly basis, not an entire platoon on a daily basis. As for assisting the crew, a Marine squad would take the job of the ship's Armsman, honorguard, and armory functions away from the crew. In addition, Manticore Marines were cross trained in basic ship gunnery and maintenance, so I'm sure they could do shipborn functions to reduce the crew loads.

Indeed, but like I said: it was a choice. They chose not to embark the marines because they weren't needed. If you had to choose between adding a marine who is going to help the navy crew 50% of their on-duty time and a navy crewperson who is going be on the job 100% of the time, you'd choose the navy.

Though there are likely jobs that are a marine's and a spacer wouldn't be able to do (properly), like providing ship security. The Master At Arms is still Navy enlisted, but the bulk of the security forces would be Marines. So they took a risk by not having those aboard, should a crewmember go nuts and try to shoot others.

If it were up to me, I'd have done what you said.

There's the extra argument that, if a flag officer is aboard, you need more security, not less. If not because of the importance of that worthy, then because the number of navy crew has increased. This means these ships should have been designed with life support for a squad or two of marines at all times, even if missing a shooting range and dedicated gym.

I'd agree with Theemile about the Rolands being able to easily take a single squad worth. Look at how few ersatz Marines Abigail used for her station assault in Saltash, and that was drawing from FIVE Rolands worth of crews. She had a total of about 2 pinnaces worth, which carry something around 20-25 apiece? Call it 50 crewmen total, who happen to be better than average with ground weapons, drawn from five Rolands works out to 10 apiece on average.


Those 10 crew per Roland somehow manage to stay in practice enough that an actual Marine-turned-Armsman Mateo Gutierrez thought they were 'good enough' to act as quasi-Marines. As they are officially Naval Ratings, they had to spend 8+ hours per day doing their actual jobs first, and only getting to 'practice or simply enjoy firing pulse rifles' on the side. If standard naval ratings can do that with whatever facilities are aboard a Roland, then you could easily fit 8-12 Marines aboard a Roland for the length of a cruise.


Second case in point, after Saltash Abigail and those same five Destroyers had to chase down the late Admiral Crandall's runaway Solly superdreadnoughts and provide those same false-Marines to provide a security element to the SAR parties. And by acting as a security element, those few who are normally engineers (that one Damage Control guy who used his DC-bot to plant a breaching charge in Saltash) ARENT acting in their naval role which means someone else had to go to fill that same naval slot. So you're still sending just as many people from the Roland to the wrecked hulks in the end, just some of them are armed and focused purely on making sure no crazed survivors can attack.



So Rolands can support an 8-12 Marine security element on non-flagships but they don't have to be there permanently, because it's field-expedient postings based on known missions. The RMN could deploy a company or even a full Battalion to various major bases and you avoid locking those same Marines into low-quality postings for a year or more. Officially they'd be assigned to the entire post, but they'd stay on-planet or aboard-station to train and practice until a specific mission requires them. Whether it's a squad per Roland for a Saltash repeat, or a full company aboard a CLAC because of cases like Mobius and you don't have any heavy cruisers or larger available due to still having their own dedicated Marine Detachments for the job.


Off-hand, I would say Spindle and Silesia are the only two RMN postings left for forward-deploying Marines, just in case your Rolands need to load up. And in both cases, that's only going to last until the locals can be trained up enough to do a similar, but scaled back job. The Talbotters already decided they're focus primarily on Army, but for what Roland's occasionally need that's good enough, particularly if they obtain some suggestions from Grayson or Haven, both of whom use Army as Marines who do not perform naval duties in addition to marine/army ones.

Somtaaw wrote:If standard naval ratings can do that with whatever facilities are aboard a Roland, then you could easily fit 8-12 Marines aboard a Roland for the length of a cruise.

We should also point out that a destroyer type isn't designed for long cruises, otherwise they'd be designated light cruisers (the Rolands are more massive than the Avalons). So what you're saying that the facilities are sufficient for a short cruise is probably true.

Off-hand, I would say Spindle and Silesia are the only two RMN postings left for forward-deploying Marines, just in case your Rolands need to load up. And in both cases, that's only going to last until the locals can be trained up enough to do a similar, but scaled back job. The Talbotters already decided they're focus primarily on Army, but for what Roland's occasionally need that's good enough, particularly if they obtain some suggestions from Grayson or Haven, both of whom use Army as Marines who do not perform naval duties in addition to marine/army ones.

They may negotiate Marine basing rights on Meyers for example, on double duty as a forward operating base and training the locals.