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Old 03-18-2011, 05:38 PM   #151
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
There may not be, but over the sixty-year lifetime you're looking at, how many of those years could nominally be given as "at war", with respect to the career of an average troop?
Marines spend about 33% of their deployments in what you might call war-zones. 27% in Fleet Protection with occasional direct action operations. 27% in Public Duties with occasional counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and civil aid. 13% in training and transit and on furlough.

Quote:
Originally Posted by martinl View Post
I would not join a service with a 12.5% KIA unless I thought the need was truly dire. ... This is probably a feature then.
Well, 13% of the male population of Australia joined the first AIF, and 18% of them were killed in four years. Figures were similar for New Zealand in WWI. So this is only 1/21.6 of the fatality rate that combat troops can sustain in war. 0.3% per annum would be 450 per year among the 150,000 US troops in Iraq during most of the war, or a total of ~3,600 during the invasion and occupation. That is somewhat fewer than actually suffered, but people are still volunteering for the US armed forces.

The Imperial marines are doing work that can easily be portrayed as essential, noble, and heroic. The need is dire for someone to do something about the propensity of colonials to bomb and shoot one another and chop people up with machetes. I like to think that I would join if I could, though perhaps I'm flattering myself. And with only 9,000 new recruits per year out of a population of 815 billion not very many people do volunteer.

Finally, in a universe where a lot of people can't afford anagathic treatments 87.5% of marines live to eighty: and they are still middle-aged and vigorous when they get there. In a universe where most people can't afford interstellar travel, a marine will visit about sixty foreign worlds in the course of his career.

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
12.5% over 60 years isn't likely much higher than civilian rates (especially on some of the tougher colonies).
An 87.5% chance of being fit, healthy, and middle-aged at eighty, with sixty years of good health ahead of you, has got to seem pretty attractive if you come from a world with an average life expectancy of 50 to 70, when in your experience octogenarians are feeble and decrepit. You meet an inactive-Marine recruiter in the ISRB with three rows of pretty ribbons on his uniform: to you he looks like a fit and well-preserved bloke in his fifties—sixty at most. Then you discover that he is ninety, flying his own goddam aircar, and still pulling. Seven chances of that and one of a noble death are going to look good to a hot-blooded youngster compared with forty years on construction sites and little chance of making eighty in any shape.

That's part of the reason why my working model has colonies with development equivalent to TL5 to TL7 producing twice as many marines recruits per head of population as colonies in the TL10 (advanced) Suite.
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Old 03-18-2011, 09:48 PM   #152
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Old 03-18-2011, 11:24 PM   #153
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Originally Posted by Brett View Post
Well, 13% of the male population of Australia joined the first AIF, and 18% of them were killed in four years. Figures were similar for New Zealand in WWI. So this is only 1/21.6 of the fatality rate that combat troops can sustain in war.
Less even - there have been wars that are less justifiable that went far worse that had no problem getting recruits. That's why I made a statement of personal preference rather than anything more sweeping.

Quote:
And with only 9,000 new recruits per year out of a population of 815 billion not very many people do volunteer.
This is why I thought it might be a feature. Optimism about personal mortality is far from the most stringent requirement you have. It seems to me the IM would flaunt it, as many modern services do.

Quote:
That's part of the reason why my working model has colonies with development equivalent to TL5 to TL7 producing twice as many marines recruits per head of population as colonies in the TL10 (advanced) Suite.
On one hand, I expect the Suite has a very low comparable involuntary mortality rate over the period in question. On the other, ennui may more than make up for that, and I'm not sure how much FB education techniques can make up for a childhood spent as a relative barbarian.

On the third, _Oliver Twist II: Please Sir, Can I Have Some More Combat Drones?_ would probably be worth watching ... from a distance.
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Old 02-17-2013, 01:23 AM   #154
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So each regiment is going to need 5.3 replacements per year for KIAs (medicine and surgery are TL10, the wounded can come back if they want to). Add in say 1% per annum for non-retention of various sorts. 1.3% per annum losses. 45.6% of intake reach retirement at age eighty, so that's 0.76% per annum losses to superannuation. Total wastage is 2.06% per annum.
Oops! Superannuation is 45.6% of the total, not of other losses. 1.09% per annum retire. Total wastage is 2.39%

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A regiment needs on average 36–37 new privates and subalterns per annum.
More like 42–43.

Quote:
The entire Corps needs 9,270 new privates and subalterns per year.
11 448

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Given 5.3% officers, and supposing that excess casualties among subalterns are balanced by very low casualties among field grade and general officers, that suggests that 491 newbie subalterns are needed each year.
606 greenhorn subalterns (and 10 843 boot commandos).
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Old 09-07-2013, 09:06 PM   #155
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Right, I've done a bit of thinking about some of the questions that people asked earlier in the thread. I'm ready to do some Fermi estimates.

There are about 1,000 inhabited planets. 375 of those are new worlds settled in the last fifty years, and seldom need interventions. About 25–50 are either bizarre utopias that don't have serious conflict or too strong for the Empire to intervene on, or both. That leaves us looking at about 600 planets about as well-run as post-colonial Africa. The 22 countries of sub-Saharan African have had among them about forty wars in fifty years, which comes to about 3.5% starting a war in any given year. That means the Empire doing about 21 interventions per year, or roughly one per sector per year. A given regiment spends 5 years in sector reserve at a time, during which there are about five interventions to perform. Divided among the three regiments that is 1.6 interventions per regiment per rotation.

Figure interventions for an average of 45 dies (Earth days) of offensive operations followed by an average of two years of occupation

Units supposedly in the Sector reserve in fact spend 2/3 of their time in occupation/peacekeeping duties.

At any time, Imperial marines are conducting offensive operations in an intervention on 2.6 worlds, at the direction of the Senate. At any time, Imperial marines are conducting peace-keeping duties on 42 planets. And that is besides Fleet Protection duties, Residence Guard duties, an ad hoc work in hostage rescue, counter-terrorism, and disaster relief. More marines are needed urgently. The Imperial Council requests an on-going authorisation from the Senate to commission five new regiments per year for the next ten years.
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Old 09-08-2013, 05:17 AM   #156
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I have revised the details of marines training, and I am posting notes on the new scheme here for reference. The main change is that initial training is now two years. A typical marine's career now begins like this:
  1. Perhaps having made an appointment, a person aged at least 18, but often older) presents s/himself at the Imperial Residence and volunteers. There is an informal interview at which ambitions are discussed and credentials if any are solemnly inspected. A candidate who is blatantly unsuitable will be turned away, otherwise medical and psychological tests are done.
    The psychological test consists of performing perceptual, cognitive, and motor tasks (including quantitative reasoning and critical thinking) while subject to varied stimuli and while wearing a brain-monitoring helmet. The medical exam consists of lying for a few minutes in a whole-body scanner and giving blood and urine samples. Unless the medical indicates an unconditional down-check (such as not being really eighteen) the candidate is told to come back the next day.
    The next day there a formal interview. One of the interviewers is generally a stereotypical stony-faced Imperial of plasticky perfection, while the other is obviously an AI robot, a bioroid, someone from a colony where they look weird, or a member of a stigmatised local social group. At the end of the interview candidates are told to wait for a call or return the following day.
    On the third day the candidate may receive a message regretting that s/he does not meet the requirements of the Imperial Service; otherwise s/he is made one or more offers of employment with the Imperial Service. Candidates are provided materials to research the careers they have been offered, and encouraged to consider their options.
  2. A candidate who accepts the offer of a career as an Imperial Marine is sworn in by a Marines officer (adjutant of the Residence guard, usually) and issued a travel voucher to get him or her to the Sector HQ (or sometimes the SHQ of an adjacent sector). That usually involves a trip in an interstellar liner, probably the candidate's first. Average time for such a trip is about fourteen days.
    The average planet produces about twelve Imperial Marines recruits per year, though the range is enormous. Recruit training induction occurs three times per year at each Division (Sector) recruit training base, so the average batch travelling together is four.
  3. Early in the morning (UTC) on the day Induction Training starts, the accumulated recruits are flown in military shuttles to an orbital habitat, often a decommissioned warship. They are made to strip naked and pack all their belongings into trunks provided, to which they'll have no access for four months. Their hair is shorn off; they are instructed to scrub and floss their teeth with a mouthwash provided (it exterminates their oral flora); they are scrubbed with a disinfectant to exterminate their skin flora; a medium-term-acting epilatory is applied to everything except their eyebrows and eyelashes. They are inspected, measured, fingerprinted, retina-printed, sampled, scanned, catalogued, and made to recite waivers, then implanted with stuff to prevent nausea, stuff to inhibit muscle wastage, stuff to inhibit bone decalcification, vaccines, and contraceptives. Then they are dyed deep green from head to foot using a semi-permanent skintone. A standard (unscented) skin culture is applied, and their mouths are inoculated with a standard (unscented) oral culture. Each recruit is issued one item black self-laundering trunk-briefs, one black self-laundering upper-body support garment, one pair black self-laundering socks, one blue duty-suit protective coverall, one pair black elastic-sided tacky-sole pumps, and a toothbrush.
    The course intake are herded into a formation and told to stand straight. The Base Commandant appears, welcomes them to the Imperial Marines, tells them that if they apply themselves to their training, work hard, and don't goof off they will be fit to join the elitest worstass fighting force ever. Meanwhile, be very careful during induction training because the slightest mistake you make the vacuum outside will kill you in twenty seconds. Dismiss. Herded by corporals to chow in free fall, then to bunkrooms.
  4. There follow 16 weeks of Induction Training, in which the recruit enjoys adjustment of his or her physical fitness while learning to live in free-fall, keep quarters spotlessly liveable, and not let the corporal find any crud in the air-filter. He or she learns about the duties and organisation of Imperial marines, the significance of titles, insignia, and decorations. There are CQB exercises (zero-gee wrestling and playing paintball in free-fall): goof-offs are not allowed padding. Double goof-offs are not allowed their overalls.
    "Recreation periods" are filled with documentaries and docudramas about the marines, compulsory zero-gee volleyball, and additional duty imposed as penalties for trifling offences. Pressure is unrelenting. Corporal-instrucors have hair and natty uniforms and do everything perfectly without apparent effort, sergeants are demanding and contemptuous.
    The last few weeks include vacc suit instruction, and EVA, There is a final practical test. Recruits who pass are issued with Imperial Marines uniforms (minus insignia) and skintone-remover.
  5. After induction training recruits are allowed seven days' furlough, on the colony that the Imperial SHQ orbits.
  6. Next is 16 weeks of Basic Military Syllabus, at a Marines base on the colony that the Imperial SHQ orbits. This includes basic parade-ground drill, Rugby, physical conditioning, basic infantry tactics, use and maintenance of standard weapons, hand-to-hand combat, fieldcraft, basic combat bot-bossing, and wear and care of battlesuits. In the last five weeks there are realistic exercises. The course is intense and demanding, but it is not deliberately stressful.
  7. After Basic Military Syllabus the recruits are allowed a week of furlough. By this time their hair is growing back.
  8. Next the recruits are shipped to a planet with a different surface gravity, for 16 weeks of Commando School. This covers climbing and rappelling, urban combat, hostage rescue, use of explosives, use of boats and SCUBA, and weekly realistic exercises.
  9. Upon completing Commando School the recruits are enlisted as privates (trained), and issued the insignia of Imperial Marines. They get a week of furlough.
  10. Then surgery to install military & police reinforcement. Usually gametes are collected for storage and the marine reversibly sterilised, though there is an opt-out. Convalescence on the ship to
  11. A planet with yet a different surface gravity for 16 weeks of Extension Training. More of everything, including Rugby. Training begins to be individualised, repairing any weak spots in the marine's skill set. There are weekly realistic combat exercises.
  12. Then there is a week of furlough before shipping to another planet or back to SHQ for
  13. 16 weeks of Integration Exercises, in which the marines put everything they have learned together in frequent, elaborate exercises with very varied scenarios under a wild variety of conditions "from the arctic to orbit at short notice".
  14. There follows a period of furlough, at least a week, to bring the very young marines into sync with the schedule of regiments working through Drop, Riot, and Battle schools.
  15. The marines are assigned to the Divisional Replacement Depot or a regiment entering re-training for either Fleet Operations School ("Drop School"), or Security Operations School ("Riot School"), or Infantry Operations School ("Battle School").
  16. Then a week of furlough. If the marine trained with a regiment, he or she my take this furlough with his of her new comrades.
  17. Then the private deploys with his or her unit, or goes into continual maintenance training at the Divisional Replacement Depot until assigned as a replacement to a unit on deployment.
    • If s/he has just finished Drop School it's off on a Fleet Protection deployment in a warship or naval orbital station. That means boarding & inspecting a lot of non-Imperial space facilities and (non-interstellar) spaceships, occasional counter-terror and hostage rescue in space and in orbital habitats, and some Direct Action on colonies.
    • If s/he has just finished Riot School it's off for a Public Duties deployment in an Imperial Residence. That means ceremonial guard and parade duty, counter-terrorism and hostage rescue on a planet, and riot control duty.
    • If s/he has just finished Battle School it's off to a regiment in the Divisional Reserve or else to replace a casualty in a unit deployed in an intervention. This means war-like and peace-keeping duty: patrols, assaults, base defence, etc.
  18. After a year of service with his or her unit, including at least one combat, and with a recommendation from his or her CO, the private (trained) is advanced in grade to private (qualified). This is not a promotion; there is no increase in authority. There is no change to insignia.

That's Imperial Marines initial training. 96 weeks of training spread over at least two years, and composed of
  • Induction Training,
  • Basic Military Syllabus,
  • Commando School,
  • Extension Training,
  • Integration Exercises, and
  • one of
    • Fleet Ops School,
    • Security Ops School, or
    • Infantry Ops School.
The training is intense, it is demanding, but it is not designed to screen out dross. The selection procedures done before the applicant even leaves his homeworld can identify applicants with the required talents, attitudes, and physical gifts: everyone recruited is suitable. It is the Training Corps' business to make sure everyone selected passes. 85% of intake become marines commandos.
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Old 09-08-2013, 05:29 AM   #157
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What happens to trainees who are accidentally injured and can't proceed with training? Ditto for ones who become psychological casualties?
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Old 09-08-2013, 06:04 AM   #158
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Where possible they are repaired, rehabilitated, and returned to training at the beginning of the school not completed owing to injury, with a later echelon.

Where that is not possible even to TL10 surgery and psychiatry (as, for example, when a psychological casualty for understandable philosophical reasons declines neuronal psychosurgery) the casualty may be suitable for some other work with the Imperial Service, in which case re-assignment and re-training are offered. The Marines training drop-out might become a police officer or emergency repair worker in an Imperial habitat, or customs & security at a spaceport, corporal-at-arms on a passenger liner, a construction foreman in one of the assistance services, engineer, architect, doctor…. If he or she isn't suitable for any other work in the Service, or declines it, he or she may be offered re-training in some profession or trade and his or her choice of either a return to his or her homeworld or free migration to one of the Empire's new worlds. In case of permanent loss or diminution of the capability to earn a living a cash compensation payment or a disability pension might be provided. And if the worst came to the worst I suppose that some sort of life in care in a nursing home in an Imperial habitat would be the only possibility.

They don't scoop your brain out and replace it with a bioroid one except in colonial movies.
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Old 09-08-2013, 06:24 AM   #159
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That was pretty much what I expected, but with such a comprehensive description, it seemed worth including.
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Old 09-08-2013, 07:39 AM   #160
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A certain proportion of the fellows recruited for Marines training don't end up becoming marines. In the above I gave the figure as about 15%. I don't think it would actually need to be that many, but this figure is an effective tranquiliser for those players who balk at my suggestion that psychology, or at least neuropsychology, might one day be highly accurate in measuring dispositions and predicting broad developments. Anyway, there are certainly some. What happens to them?

A few doubtless do not develop as required under training, perhaps because of inaccuracies in assessment, perhaps because or uncontrolled influences in the training, perhaps because of chance coincidence of elements of both nature and nurture, perhaps because their prediction included a significant chance of washing out counterbalanced by a chance of making an outstanding marine, perhaps because recruits' awareness of a chance of washing out of training is an important component of the necessary environment and some poor suckers are recruited just so that a few can be seen to flunk it. These guys are either going to be offered training for other work or sent home.

Some are no doubt killed in training accidents. On one hand TL10 and medics on hand means it takes a lot to be actually lethal. On the other hand, training in vacuum. Fatalities in training in SASR have been 40 in 55 years out of an establishment of about 400, or 0.2% per year. Let's say 0.5% of intake are killed in training accidents. About three intakes out of four lose a member to a training accident. A Sector training establishment with six intakes in various schools at any time gets 4.5 fatalities per year in training accidents. And initial training is about just as dangerous as active service. That seems about right.

Perhaps three are wounded and do not return for each one killed. 1.5%. We're still only up to 2%.

Perhaps 5% develop the feeling that the pit yawns too wide and their halos fit to tightly, and resign. Perhaps as many do not satisfy the assessors and get scrubbed. Such people may be found in jobs such as spaceport and liner security, police and emergency workers in IDJ and on new worlds under Imperial interim administration, etc. That's a total of 12%. What happens to the other 3%?

Well, they just vanish during one of the periods of furlough: usually after Commando School or Integration Training, but sometimes between Drop School and the Divisional Replacement Depot. Vanish without a word, and nothing is said by the instructors. Four or five out of each intake. Very occasionally a marine will bump into one of these guys. But whereas the drop-outs and casualties fall on one's neck with glad cries of Brother! Brother! and want to spend an evening reliving the days when they were marines, these guys are polite and a bit distant, as though they were slightly embarrassed. And they always turn out to be doing something trivial, often not in the Service at all: art appraisers, security consultants, insurance claims adjusters for colonial brokerages, or journalists even. Everyone pretty much decides that this is not the sort of thing that you talk about.

3% of marines recruits. About 300 fellows per annum. Perhaps 12,000 throughout the Empire if they serve as long as marines. Excellent military aptitude. Trained as commandos and sometimes as drop troops. Either they were ring-ins from the start, recruited for something else unknown perhaps even to them, and given commando training for some other employment. Or else marines training happens to turn a few percent of marines recruits into something that someone wants for some other reason. Best not to talk about it.

Does that seem right? Or are half of Marines officers recruited out of the enlisted training program?
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