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Imperial Marine Traditions

M

Murph

SOC-14 1K
IMTU, the Imperial Marines had a number of Regiments which maintained the ties to Old Earth famous regiments

42nd Marines- The Black Watch
71st Marines- The HLI
Same with the Cameronians, Gordon Highlanders, etc

7th Marine Cavalry- Garry Owen
17th Cavalry- Totenkopf Hussaren
etc.

Bagpipes were in all Imperial Marine Regiments, Commando regiments used the Light Infantry quickstep march. Cavalry regiments traditionally wore a stetson, unless they had a specific "tribal" headgear.

Standard dress uniform was similar the USMC colors, with Mess dress being a white Tunic, and Navy Blue trousers with a red stripe.
 
Just a counter proposal,

If you’re going to base the Imperial Marines on Earth traditions, then I would go with using paratroop regiments. The logic for this would be as follows, at present, it is the Air Force that is the leading military agency in space development and exploration. It would then seem to follow that the troops that work with the Air Force, that it the Airborne units, would make up the future Spaceborne forces as well.

If that were true, then you could use the following system for regimental numbers:

5XX for Jump Regiments

3XX for Assault Shuttle Regiments (the old ‘glider riders’)

This could give you up to 99 regiments of each just following the ‘American model’

Note: The fact that I am a former Paratrooper myself is in now way affecting my view of this issue….
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Rob
 
just WHO the heck is this 'Garry Owen' Fellow. My copy of Dupuy's 'Encycolpedia of Military Biography' makes no mention of him.

Mind you it also fails to mention Gen. De Gaul either.

I based my Marine Traditions on those described for Co-Dominion Marines in Jerry Pournelle's "The Mercenary".
 
The ONLY reason the Airforce is the leading military representaive in space so far is because no one has asked them to take any land yet.

When that happens it WILL be the Marines. No argument.

Semper Fi, Mac.
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http://www.naples.net/presents/7thcav/

http://ingeb.org/songs/letbacch.html (listen to the midi file)

Garry Owen! LZ Xray in Vietnam, Custer's Own.

Originally posted by Garf:
just WHO the heck is this 'Garry Owen' Fellow. My copy of Dupuy's 'Encycolpedia of Military Biography' makes no mention of him.

Mind you it also fails to mention Gen. De Gaul either.

I based my Marine Traditions on those described for Co-Dominion Marines in Jerry Pournelle's "The Mercenary".
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Originally posted by BluWolf:
...
When that happens it WILL be the Marines. No argument.

Semper Fi, Mac.
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Or the Navy. The Commander of the first International Space Station crew was Captain William Shepherd, USN.

A SEAL.
 
In case Murph is being too obscure, "Garry Owen" is an Irish drinking song from the middle 19th Century. It was the Regimental March of the US 7th Cavalry and eventually became the slogan and battle cry of the regiment.

Besides the Indian Wars, where the 7th took heavy casualties at The Little Big Horn and returned the favor at Wounded Knee (not a massacre, although a bit one-sided) the 7th served as Infantry in the Pacific in WWII. In Vietnam a battalion of the 7th Cavalry was the airmobile unit in We Were Soldiers.

And that is where Garry Owen comes from.
 
One more thought. I was thinking that tracing the traditions of 3rd Imperium Marines to contemporary units is kind of like tracing the lineage of the 3rd Armored Division to the Gold Wing of Assyrian chariots.

(And before anyone gets huffy, I invented "the Gold Wing")
 
Uncle Bob:
... tracing the traditions of 3rd Imperium Marines to contemporary units is kind of like tracing the lineage of the 3rd Armored Division to the Gold Wing of Assyrian chariots.
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Yep. That's what I always think. On the other hand, PCs tend to: Wear old flight jackets with NASA patches..., Tend to drink Coca Cola and Whisky..., Imperial military ranks are U.S. military ranks... (hope I'm right here),
and so on...

So IMHO it's not too far-fetched to use more Terran equivalents, because it's natural to us. Perhaps the Rule of Man had more influence than we thought.
 
According to T4 at least, part of the Third Imperium's legitimacy at the time of the founding was a link to the Rule of Man through a local Rule of Man leader (who may have actually claimed to be emperor) whose dynasty ruled Sylea during much of the Long Night.

Since Cleon I was pushing this claim to be "Restoring" the Imperium, rather than founding a new one, perhaps he could have done a lot of research into Rule of Man traditions when he re-organized the Sylean Federation armed forces into the Imperial ones.

Would it not have been inconcievable for Mussolini to have renamed his regiments after old Roman ones. Since we do know a fair amount about various Roman legions and other units, it's not outside the realm of possibility.
 
Imperial Military ranks as written in the CT and T4 mostly are American.

Though the Differences tend to be minor. Lance Corporal instead of PFC. Some places may Monitor instead of corporal (actually Canadian Arty units call their corporals Bombardiers)

RE: Garry Ah, thanks for the answer AND the clarification. I'm a affraid I needed both. um... let me guess: Garry Owen is the song they kept using for background music in 'We were soldiers'?

"Lay me down/in th' cahld cahld ground/...something something../Stand my gRRound/and I'll nae be affraid."

???

And here I thought he was a person. No wonder Col. Dupuy doesn't mention him. (the flaw of specialized encyclopedias.)

One point where the comparison to the assyrians may break down:

the Imperium still speaks Enlish (Galanglic) it probably resembles english as much as vernacular french resembles latin but hey.

the Imperium's historical records go back longer than ours do. they can actually READ shakespeare.

okay okay so we can read Thuycides too but... still.

heh.. I just had an idea. have some Marine Battle Dress Unit call themselves Hoplites.

anyhoo...

Other interesting traditions.

The Legion Entranger. (at least according to Jerry Pournelle, they make a good core model for an international force)

Highland, Ghurka, or other 'ethnic' regiments.

Regiments with distinctive uniforms ( ie (from the american civil - Zouaves, Garibaldi, etc)

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to come up with a general military look for some traveller historical armies.

Many 19th century armies were modeled on french units of the time. (Blue uniforms with caps resembling Kepis). By the end of the 20th, they had evolved some bits taken from the prussians (the modern police/military style dress cap)

Nowadays American styles (wich drew from french and german styles) are copied.

What were the Sylean uniforms like? and how much like those are the current imperial uniforms?

Which terran polity did the solomani use for their uniforms?

how has technology changed uniforms?
For example, the Conoidal bullet altered Battledress from a brightly coloured all purpose uniform to a combat/grunge duty uniform the colour of mud (or dirt or leaves). The use of space suits, environment and other helmeted uniforms over the last 3 millenia, might have extinguished the use of anything other than soft caps or beret's as formal military headgear?
Aliens who only need insignia painted on their hides or who only wear cloaks or similar scraps might provoke a simplification in military dress codes?

on the other hand The vargr propensity for full dress and feathers might keep just about ANY uniform style alive. Even feather plumed Shakos, or tunics with elaborate frogging.

Anyone have any thoughts on what traditional Vilani uniforms might have looked like? (it apears from alien modules that the Zhodants have a lock on turbans and short capes.)
 
Garf, no in the movie that WAS NOT Garry Owen. I don't know the name of the song. For Garry Owen, see the movie the Rough Riders. Its the song the lady was singing as they got on the train in San Antonio to go to Florida.

IMTU, ranks, and traditions are more British than anything else. Although you have Imperial German, US, Russian, Legion, etc.
 
I like the analogy of Mussolini reorganizing based on the Roman Legions. With compromises to fit contemporary realities and a lot of distortion stirred in from popular misunderstandings. Things like cutlasses.

Oh, the PFC rank has only existed since WWII. Before that the US Army had Lance Corporals and the USMC still does.
 
Why do I find the thought of Gurkas in battledress to be so damn scarry. . .

Keep in mind that Imperial units can derive their histories from across a wide sweep of time. 21st century America? Sure! Pacification Campaigns? Yup! Solomani Rim War? Uh huh and so on. Just imagine being in a Marine unit which has, technally, participated in all of the Frontier Wars.
 
Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Besides the Indian Wars, where the 7th took heavy casualties at The Little Big Horn and returned the favor at Wounded Knee (not a massacre, although a bit one-sided) the 7th served as Infantry in the Pacific in WWII.
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Wounded Knee not a massacre? I beg your pardon? They mowed down practically defenseless Indians en masse, following a rather obscure provocation. The US soldiers didn´t distinguish between men, women or children either.
What´s your definition of a massacre, then?

Feel free to move that to Random Static, if you like to.
 
Militarisms:-

USMC have been known to ackowledge an order with "Semper Fi" - a regretable contraction of there motto.

I've also heard of Cav ackowledgeing with "GarryOwen" and Rangers using "Airborne".

IMTU all combat engineers will use their motto "Holdfast" at the drop of a hat. And I tend to have combat engineers fairly thick on the ground. They often have "Engineering" battledress with the "Very wide shovel" attachment.

What other militarisms like this happen IYTU?
 
Defining a massacre...
I start with engagements where the casualties among the "massacrerers" are less 1/10 those suffered by the "massacred." I prefer massacres not be initiated by the losers.

Wounded Knee was sloppy. There were some incidents that showed lousy fire discipline and a few that appear to be atrocities, but by all reports (including Sioux) the Sioux took no special care to seperate combatents and non-combatants. Numerous prisoners were taken and some were offered medical care. It was not Malmedy, Mei li or Sand Creek. It compares rather to the recent Israeli operations on the West Bank.

And I'm not going to look up my references so I am through with this topic.
 
Militarisms,

If you want to do a Marine, "OOrah" I won't complain.

But please, no one use the monosyllabic neanderthal grunt currently popular in the US Army.
 
Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
But please, no one use the monosyllabic neanderthal grunt currently popular in the US Army.
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Nah. Leave that to the Imperial Army units. Some of them may actually be made up OF neanderthals.

Simon Jester
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Amen to that Brother. I had more Sergeants mad at me because I would not EVER do that grunting. I would always do a Gary Owen! Man, Refm Nco's have no sence of humor.
Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Militarisms,

If you want to do a Marine, "OOrah" I won't complain.

But please, no one use the monosyllabic neanderthal grunt currently popular in the US Army.
Click to expand...
Capt. Blacklight
 
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