Naval Mass Combat and Marines/Crew

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Another historical complexity is turning crew into marines. This was fairly common, especially with galleys which had large crews.

I think that the marines are seperate from listed TS. For one thing, different armies might choose different troops as marines; for another, a fleet might be attacked after it had unloaded its marines.

I'm suprised that as written marines need the Marine feature (training in amphibious assaults) to count in naval battles. Fifth-century Greek marines certainly didn't have this, and they certainly were important to the outcome of a naval battle. But that's east to ignore in a low-TL battle between two fleets.

Galleys in the later stages when they used servile rowers were a bit iffy on this. Even then it was not unknown to give rowers a chance to fight for their manumission. Turks didn't do that as their rowers were mostly Christians whereas Christians having had something of a piratical trade imbalence with Moslems, used convicts more then Turks and while Christian rowers might think it more pleasant to mutiny and gain freedom and patriotism at the same time, convicts might conceivably prefer the side of their home country.
Thus it was a judgement call.
At earlier times before servile rowing, it was reasonably common to give weapons to rowers.