Naval Mass Combat and Marines/Crew

[Huyderman]

I'm sitting here looking at the low-tech Navel elements, and trying to figure out if they're supposed to include marines and such for boarding. I'm really uncertain what the diffrent elements are supposed to include, and what should be included as extras. Any thoughts?

[Ulzgoroth]

The naval combat rules specifically support loading additional marines onto your ships for boarding purposes. I'd say you should build the entire marine complement as carried elements, because they are easily dismounted and used separately from the ship.

Using the crew as boarders is probably included in the base TS, for ships that would be expected to do so.

[Huyderman]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The naval combat rules specifically support loading additional marines onto your ships for boarding purposes. I'd say you should build the entire marine complement as carried elements, because they are easily dismounted and used separately from the ship.

Using the crew as boarders is probably included in the base TS, for ships that would be expected to do so.

I figured something like that, but a few of the entries mentions having marines.

When I statted up using MC a ship with crew my PCs had, I used the Cog along with two marine elements. But reading some of the entries, I started becoming unsure if this would be accurate representation.

[Ulzgoroth]

Every ship that specifically mentions marines also has a very conveniently matching transport capacity. 10-30 marines on a ship with T3, a 'small number of marines' with T1, 70 soldiers with T7. I'd read it as marines sold separately, but there's certainly room for doubt.

[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.

[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.