Quote:Original post by Talroth
And why do some people seem to dislike calling them 'marines' and state that they should have been more creative when making them up. They're soldiers that fight mainly from ships, just spaceships in this case, and that is what a marine is. Do people expect developers to call them "Spaceies" or something? (which might get CHUM lawyers giving you the finger)

As a point of interest, Macross refers to the space-borne branch of a military as a "Spacy". This sounds silly, but closely parallels the current military divisions of Army (derived from "Armed") and Navy (derived from "Naval").

The military sense of "marine" doesn't seem to be firmly defined. It seems like the general concept is that marines are units which specialize in Navy missions which require the skills and equipment of both the Navy and the Army.

"Space marines" seems an obvious extension of the concept for a Spacy-commanded force specialized for both Spacy and Army techniques. On the other hand, we don't call paratroopers "air marines", so it's not inconceivable that there might be a different name for "space marines".

If terminology is a real issue, you could give them the official title "Royal Spacy Infantry Corps" but have everyone use their nickname of "Space Marines".

Quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
If you build a ship with narrow corridors that allow personnel to walf comfortably through them, then some wise guy will get rifles and send men to walk comfortably through your ship, shooting your personnel. A good way to make that less effective might be to build a new ship with wider corridors and put guys in armor in them, so the boarders next time won't be able to kill your personnel with rifles.

It seems like installing doors would be a quicker, cheaper and more effective solution. When boarders breach the hull, you lock the doors. With hundreds of locked doors between the hull and the bridge, boarding to capture a ship by direct force looks like a losing prospect.

That should hardly be surprising given that boarding is hardly ever used in modern naval warfare, precisely because it's really difficult. When it is done, it's done by stealth, which isn't exactly what chaps in massive bulletproof power suits are best at.

Quote:
"Just make the corridors too narrow" is like saying, "Just fill the ship with a gas that causes the joints in their armor to fuse and stop working." It's narrowly defined and requires you to know exactly what they're using and doing.

What they're using and doing? They're using armored suits much bigger than a conventional human, and they're walking in them.

It's easy to make corridors which are only just big enough to fit a unarmored human. It's even likely that you'll be doing that even without worrying about people in power armor, since smaller corridors means the ship weighs less. This is why present-day military vessels are so cramped.

On the other hand, filling the ship with a gas which fuses their joints requires you to have far more specific knowledge about their armor, unless you also want to break all of your own equipment.

In reality, there's no reason to imagine that bulky power armor will be effective inside most of a space ship. The exceptions would be places where bulky cargo is transported to and from, since the corridors connecting such places would have to be large enough to allow the cargo through.

[Edited by - Nathan Baum on June 10, 2007 10:30:11 PM]

Quote:Original post by Talroth
Where? I've worn armour. I've worn reproduction armour from nearly every time period, the only style that made it hard (but far from impossible) was one for late period jousting that locked a lot of parts together.

Those that you say you saw likely weren't in proper armour. Either just poorly designed, or no where near fitting them.

You're right in that real "medieval" armour was surprisingly light -- favourably comparable to the gear a modern-day soldier is expected to carry -- and did not significantly limit your flexibility. On the other hand, they didn't look like

Unlike that design, historic armour did not double the size of its wearer.

Indeed, Space Marine armor of the sort shown above probably weighs a ton. Being powered, the marine would still be able to operate the suit, but it would mean that instead of (or in addition to) building narrow corridors, I could also slow your advance by building floors that couldn't support the weight of a suit of power armor.

http://forums.relicnews.com/archive/index.php/t-52390.html
Someone at White Dwarf published a ruleset for movie-grade space marines for WH40k probably based on the fluff (where you don't really have to balance the armies so rigorously). This little battle report should tell a little about the plot armour they're wearing offgame.

Wasn't the Marine Corps created specifically to be a landing force? For making beach assaults and defending naval ships that were full of non-combat personnel? To go where others couldn't by being prepared to do just that? Consider that in the vast reaches of space no one will ever fight a war in the middle of it. What for? There isn't anything to fight over in the middle of nowhere no matter where you put it. Any future interstellar or interplanetary wars will be fought over and around resources. Planets, mineral rich asteroids, moons of strategic significance etc. You could drop bombs from orbit all over your important resources or you could send in the marines from orbit to make the enemy get their hands off of your stuff and then keep it for yourself. Tanks and planes do their part in warfare to be sure but boots on the ground let you keep what you fought for in the first place. There will be a need for a space based assault force in humanity's future cause we like to fight. I believe most sci-fi warriors wear bulky armor because the weapons of the future make kevlar work like paper. Because of necessity plain and simple. I wouldn't go at it with an enemy armed with a plasma rifle if I wasn't sure my gear could take a graze or two. Or take on a laser beam without a mirror. Methods for armoring our troops will advance along with methods for cutting through the armor we use right now. Someone with a highpowered laser beam could cut through anything we could use to defend against bullets and explosives.
As for the name "Space Marines" it would only make sense in the context of what a marine is now, if we needed them to make assaults from space or defend non-combat personell in space. They would be "marines" in space. Would you want to train your army regulars to do ship-to-ship boarding manuevers? No. You would get your hard-core killers to learn the trick. Who would that be? The marines. Maybe the Chinese would call them something else, but here in America they would be Space Marines to differentiate them from the normal ones who's basic job description still applies to our needs for amphibious assaults. And if you landed an invasion force on an enemy planet and needed to do an amphibious assault somewhere, you would use regular marines to do that. I think the naming of a thing normally goes with the natural order of things. Would you call a pilot in a starship a starpilot? To differentiate from a airplane pilot or a boat pilot for that matter? (Boats used to have pilots I believe) Would you have a bridge on a starship or a cockpit? What does space have to do with water anyways? It all has to do with our naming conventions that stem from what we knew before we knew this new thing we have to give a name to. Chances are that any "Space Marines" we get in the future will be named with some damned acronym anyways cause Americans are inherently lazy in our speech. Space Air and Land Tactics Trooper = SALT Trooper. You could call them Salties. There. Now go come up with clever acronyms for your marauding space people.