Prepare to Repel Boarders! Marine Ship defense Tactic help

Imprive

New Member
I am working on writing a space opera, and I am using that long long tradition of taking our modern sea-going navy and applying that to a space opera setting. Since this is my first draft I am not putting as much depth as I will in the final copy, however I need to do some research to move my story forwards.

In this section, my protagonists, and the two marine squads they are with are moving through their ship trying to reach the bridge. The enemy has already boarded the vessel (somehow) and they are chewing through the marine compliments way too easily. My protagonists have almost reached the bridge, and they ran into a marine checkpoint crewed by one squad an a commissioned officer (captain). Right after the checkpoint officer confirms their identity, there is a loud explosion down the hall and soon the enemy will appear. So the checkpoint squad, as well as the two other squads take up defensive positions. But I do not know enough terminology (or marine ship defense tactics) to accurately depict how three squads would defend a large ship corridor. I've found a few marine tactic handbooks, but nothing on defense of or how to execute a boarding maneuver.

I know how the first squad should be setup, using the checkpoint barriers as cover, but I can't think of how to arrange the other squads. This enemy can easily overpower them, so I want to emphasis that it takes a good amount of firepower to fight them.

Does anybody know of a place where I can find manuals that will help me? Or someone's brain I could pick?
 

StarshipTrooper

New Member
Clearly a tardy response to a question asked over 4 years ago...but here goes:

Given the limited information and scenario provided by Imprive, in the tradition of many space operas to avoid bogging down in the exact science, physics, and tactics of futuristic space combat, let's try answering using a combination of common sense, our shared cinematic and literature experiences, and some real-world wisdom from the 1880 Edition of the "Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy." (Search online for it.)

Some basic assumptions:
1. A "Marine squad" is similar to a US Marine infantry squad of today, with roughly 13 Marines of varying ranks typically led by a Sergeant (although casualties sustained or even staffing shortages could easily break this...), which is carefully trained and organized to operate either together, or temporarily in several smaller independent "fire-teams."
2. Such a squad probably doesn't have weaponry heavier than the "standard" infantry weapons that can be carried daily (or quickly issued from an armory to "repel boarders"). In today's terms, that's one M-16 or M-4 assault rifle per Marine, each rifle typically fitted with a variety of add-ons like flashlights, laser pointers, sling, various sights (night, infrared, close-in, or long-distance), and perhaps a bayonet, fore-handle, and/or collapsible stock, each usually personalized enough so that each Marine has their favorite "targeting dope" set and gear to their liking...but standardized enough so that ammunition and nearly all add-ons are readily usable by any teammate should weapons need to be exchanged in extremis.
3. The typical Marine squad also has 3-4 grenade launchers (40 mm M-203) attached to one of the rifles (usually one "grenadier/rifleman" in each fire-team). Each grenade launcher can fire a wide variety of projectiles, from smoke and tear gas to white phosphorous and bridge/cabin/passageway-clearing shotgun rounds (and a 40 mm shotgun round is a BIG shotgun spray roughly equivalent to a "1-gauge" shotgun throwing over 5000 grains or nearly one pound of projectiles, as opposed to the much more common "12-gauge" shotgun throwing over 500 grains or about one ounce of projectiles).
4. Each Marine squad typically has 3 Squad Automatic Weapons (one per fire-team, carried by the Automatic Rifleman in each fire-team). These are light machine guns firing the same 5.56mm ammo as the standard rifles, although the SAWs generally use large 200 or 100 round drums of ammo to lay down a high rate of fire to support fire and maneuver tactics in either offense or defense.
5. Each Marine wears some form of body armor/helmet, at least equivalent to today's body armor.
6. The futuristic scenario does NOT include Starship Trooper-style powered assault armor and weapons that make each Marine a tank.
7. The future Marines are not as ineffective as the Stormtroopers always appeared to be in the Star Wars movies: in spite of body armor, one hit from even a handgun would knock them out and they couldn't hit anything they aimed at.
8. There is either natural or artificial gravity at or near 1G (or the Marines are otherwise physically or technologically adapted to a lesser/greater gravity). This point is almost never addressed...the use of "artificial gravity" has been almost a constant assumption since the earliest science fiction movies and TV, to the point that actually mentioning it or having to act in the absence of gravity is the rare exception.
9. The weapons the Marines are using are either specially designed for spaceship use, or the situation is so dire that NOT using those weapons would result in death anyway...fire in space is very bad. Oxygen is used to stay alive, but it also burns, and any weapon capable of "making fire" or burning or punching a hole in a ship's bulkhead or hull is very, very dangerous indeed...think "submarine" or "airliner at 40,000 feet."
10. Any spaceship that has at least 3 squads of Marines (generally equivalent to a Company of Marines, or perhaps a "Ship's Complement" of Marines for a capital warship (battlecruisers or above)), aboard is probably very large, and most likely a warship with a large Naval crew who also must go about their duties, and may in fact have training and equipment and desire to "repel boarders" nearly exactly as described in the 1880 Edition of the "Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy." It would be foolish NOT to train and equip space Sailors for damage control and at least basic anti-boarding tactics since their lives may depend on it. Although, as described below, it's also possible that the spaceship in the scenario, a la USS Sulaco from Aliens, is essentially crewed only by the on-board Marines, who may or may not perform Crew duties or where there is extensive automation that reduces the need for human crew to a minimum.

With the basic assumptions out of the way, let's get a couple of examples as points of reference. These are of course readily available and recognizable, to virtually any fan of science fiction:

1. The 1986 film Aliens, with United States Colonial Marines both aboard their initial troopship the USS Sulaco, and deployed via dropship to then fight it out with both firepower and eventually wits.
2. The 1977 film Star Wars IV: A New Hope, with the opening scene of the Corellian corvette/Alderaan cruiser Tantive IV, as it is disabled and then boarded by Imperial stormtroopers during a classic "repel boarders" scene down the passageways before Darth Vader arrives.

And while there are many good examples in science fiction literature, the gold standard is probably the 1959 Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, which served as the foundation for Cameron's Colonial Marines in Aliens, in spite of Heinlein never actually stating "Space Marines" in his novel, using instead "capsule troopers" in the Mobile Infantry, upscaling amphibious assault and fire and maneuver tactics into planetary assault and literally nuclear firepower with every Trooper a main battle tank-equivalent.

An honorable mention goes to the reimagined 2000's TV series Battlestar Galactica's many interior passageway fight scenes, even on bridges of warships, where there were Colonial Marines involved (albeit usually in uncredited, minor roles).

So, with the expanded literature and cinematic reviews above, and basic assumptions in place, let's try a couple of scenarios to try to assist you:

1. The protagonists and their Marines pass through the checkpoint, which could be purposefully designed like ancient castle gates with 90 degree angles, portcullises, murder holes in the roof, traps in the floor, firing ports in the walls, "sentry guns" as depicted in Aliens, or perhaps the checkpoint is ad hoc with some desks, chairs, and other rapidly available debris piled up. While not well-depicted in most films or literature, any space warship that has a "welcome-mat" and wide open passageway leading right up to the bridge is designed by either supremely confident people, or ignorant people. For this scenario, let's assume that the passageway to the bridge is wide, clear, and you could basically drive a car down it and crash into the bridge. How best to "repel boarders" and defend the bridge? Combinations of:

a. Surprise the enemy by changing the physical conditions --- turn off artificial gravity (or alternatively turn it up!), turn off (or up!) the lighting, turn off (or up!) the shipboard soundsystem, change magnetism or polarity, evacuate atmosphere either explosively, or subtly by changing the chemistry such as ordering all Marines to don emergency masks and using chlorine gas, mustard gas, nerve gas, or even a noble gas like argon ("Halo"n!) to remove fire danger and affect enemy respiration.
b. Use smoke or other concealment such as steam to defeat infrared or cause burns.
c. Deploy grenades (both from weapons and by hand, or even dropped as the Marines retreat toward the checkpoint).
d. Set mines/explosives set for timed, remote, heat, cold, weight, etc. This should already have been done by the checkpoint squad...set these up as part of defensive network long before arrival of protagonists and enemy.
e. Close intermediate bulkheads sequentially immediately after protagonists pass through. Any starship with interior bulkheads and decent engineering would have to be essentially Titanic-like with multiple sections that can be shut off for damage control (or repelling boarders!).
f. Use equivalent of anti-tank missiles if available down the passageway (recalling that whether they explode on target and destroy enemy or somewhere down the passageway and blow a hole in the hull...physics is still in play). Unlike some weapons, a missile could still be used in zero/low G, smoke, even radiation leakage, especially if it is automatically targeted or targeted by the Marine operator.
g. Last ditch, if you have more than a few Marines, with weapons and some form of body armor, and only minimal debris at the checkpoint for actual cover, and it's stand and fight or die, then the Marines would be forced to mass by laying on the deck and firing from prone, kneeling, behind debris, crouching, and standing.
h. This would be almost a 1800's "stand, kneel, prone" fire at will, massing firepower down the passageway. If there is no retreat, and death is almost a certainty, then there is no issue with standing in the middle of passageway shoulder to shoulder with your fellow Marines and firing until you or the enemy is dead...ultimately, most soldiers fight not only for themselves, but for their buddies left and right. Better to go down together than run away or get picked off one by one.

2. If, however, the warship was properly designed with the bridge as a citadel, nearly impregnable, then there would also be significant thought and design features to make defending that citadel easier, even for the Marines who are outside and not privileged to be protected inside.

a. A properly designed "checkpoint" before the bridge would in this scenario #2 have specific (and possibly quite secret except for high ranking officers...and the Marines who have to actually do it) features.
b. Right turns in the actual passageway to ensure maximum preparation time.
c. Possibly switchbacks deliberately to confuse attackers.
d. Massive bulkheads (10 feet or 10 meters thick) that immediately drop into place upon attack or upon command.
e. Custom-designed firing stations that provide complete protection (essentially inside tank turrets) while firing weaponry completely beyond the carrying capacity of individuals.
f. Specific types of defenses such as explosive decompression, micro-gravity wells and micro-magnetic grapples, gasses, radiation, smokes, sticky glues, foams, etc.
g. Physical barriers as simple as trip wires (with/without weapons attached), massive cables like aircraft carrier tripwires crisscrossing the passage.
h. Surrounding an entire portion of a passageway with technology like magnetism or gamma radiation, etc., making it at worst impossible to move some metals and at worst biologically unsustainable for life. Shielded beyond of course so that the effects are contained to the "kill zone".
i. Or, the sci-fi standard: "shields." A large warship left with only auxiliary power would be designed like a human body to conserve power and route it to critical areas, and other than the engines themselves, the bridge would be critical. Even with only auxiliary power, it would stand to reason that when a ship cannot prevent boarding, it could at least prevent capture of the bridge by routing all remaining power to force fields/shields around the bridge. This is a "scorched earth" concept...if you have to vent all spaces in the hull except power generation and batteries, and the bridge, and completely kill life support in all those vented spaces, then that may be what is required.

3. Like most military planners, you of course want to have more options! These are what we often call "throw aways" because nobody wants to actually do them...

a. Surrender! It sucks, but people have lived long, healthy lives in the past because they did this.
b. Suicide! The opposite of above...choose to die immediately rather than alternatives.
c. Everyone retreat into the bridge itself, abandon all defenses outside. After all, you could argue that once everyone is dead outside the bridge, and the enemy breaches the bridge, what's the point? Worried about stray laser bolt blowing out the front view screen and venting the bridge to space?
d. Escape down a garbage chute...we've all seen it done!
e. Escape in lifepods...we've seen this one, too!
f. Release some terrible weapon held in reserve, like nano-bots from Stargate TV, or Alien facehuggers (or full sized ones), or rabid Wookiiees, or biological weapons, flood the space with multiple types of radiation that would cook anything.
g. Banzai charge down the passageway, all remaining Marines "fix bayonets" and attack violently to give time for their noble protagonists to survive, if the Marines are either very brave, or perhaps just cannon fodder cartoon characters. Given a choice, most Marines faced with near certain death probably would prefer this option anyway, if nothing else it may surprise attackers and take some down while giving the noble protagonists time to seek life.
h. Or set the auto-destruct for the ship...we've seen this, too...

All in all, I wouldn't worry about exact tactics of how to defend a wide open passageway without any weapons or defenses except what you and your Marines carry on their bodies...use your imagination, invent something, or just go "old school" and have the senior surviving Marine say something like, "well, sir/madam/lord/master/etc.), it was nice to know you. We'll buy you some time, and maybe take out some of them as well." And then you close that scene and move onto the next chapter. This way, the actual tactics and survival are essentially not necessary to the larger story arc.

Best of luck, and Semper fi,
ST
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
As an ex sailor from a navy that never strikes its colours it's hold off the enemy until the last, destroy your ship so that it won't fall into enemy hands and makes sure you take plenty of them with you when you go out in a blaze of glory :) The principle is save as many of your people as you can, but never strike your colours and never let your ship fall into enemy hands regardless of circumstances.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
2. Such a squad probably doesn't have weaponry heavier than the "standard" infantry weapons that can be carried daily (or quickly issued from an armory to "repel boarders").
Depends on the navy. In the German Navy for example mobile protection elements - numbering anywhere from 4 to 10 (dedicated) soldiers depending on size of vessel - can be and regularly are reinforced with two-man teams for heavy weapons - typically M2HB or GMG. These would typically be set in semi-static defensive positions especially to cover arcs against boarding not covered by the ship's own armament.
Having a small number of heavier weapons (...1-2) therefore isn't that farfetched if the script would require it.
 
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