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It just struck me after reading a few other threads here. Who defends the ships of the imperial navy?

The first and foremost reason navies have had marines is to provide security on board ships, and to prevent boarding parties from capturing their vessel / capturing other vessels with boarding parties. The whole infantry that deploy from ships onto land thing is a relatively recent innovation.

But do space marines do this? I mean, there's only a relative handful of space marines, and they tend to get their attention eaten up by being special forces engaged in rapid strike assaults. Meanwhile there are, what, trillions of ships plying the void of space? There are no way there are enough marines to have a detatchment on all of them, much less being able to do both that and handle the security of their little fiefdoms at the same time.

Of course if a fleet attacks a space marine fleet en route to somewhere, or try to attack their fleet directly while some of the battle brothers are planetside then the space marines are going to be actual space marines, but what about everyone else? If I've got a trading vessel moving a billion tons of grain from an ag-world to a hive city, one of perhaps hundreds set to arrive that day, then who runs security on my ship? Surely the imperial navy doesn't have enough destroyers and cruisers to give everybody an escort either. And it sort of can't be the imperial guard because of the split (though I could possibly see this in the form of a tiny detachment on each ship).

So what's the proverbial PDF of space-faring vessels?

I believe they're part of the crew.

Could we not define marines as soldiers that primary fight FROM ships?

In this case, Space Marines certainly fit the bill - travelling to the conflict shipboard and then performing rapid strikes from the ship via drop pod or thunderhawk. Rarely would they set up a base.

Technically, I guess you could therefore class IG as 'marines' by this definition. But IG are much more likely to secure a semi-permanent base or beachhead before starting their attack.

I agree, marines deploy from ships so maybe that's it, although originally they were probably just called marines because GW thought it sounded cool.

How important is ship protection when your probably spending most of the journey in the warp?

 Ailaros wrote:
It just struck me after reading a few other threads here. Who defends the ships of the imperial navy?

The first and foremost reason navies have had marines is to provide security on board ships, and to prevent boarding parties from capturing their vessel / capturing other vessels with boarding parties. The whole infantry that deploy from ships onto land thing is a relatively recent innovation.

But do space marines do this? I mean, there's only a relative handful of space marines, and they tend to get their attention eaten up by being special forces engaged in rapid strike assaults. Meanwhile there are, what, trillions of ships plying the void of space? There are no way there are enough marines to have a detatchment on all of them, much less being able to do both that and handle the security of their little fiefdoms at the same time.

Of course if a fleet attacks a space marine fleet en route to somewhere, or try to attack their fleet directly while some of the battle brothers are planetside then the space marines are going to be actual space marines, but what about everyone else? If I've got a trading vessel moving a billion tons of grain from an ag-world to a hive city, one of perhaps hundreds set to arrive that day, then who runs security on my ship? Surely the imperial navy doesn't have enough destroyers and cruisers to give everybody an escort either. And it sort of can't be the imperial guard because of the split (though I could possibly see this in the form of a tiny detachment on each ship).

So what's the proverbial PDF of space-faring vessels?

The uplifting primer mentions that the ships themselves are defended against boarding actions by on board armsmen, that are most likely very similar to imperial guard, and of course any on board troops will help the defences also.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Could we not define marines as soldiers that primary fight FROM ships?

In this case, Space Marines certainly fit the bill - travelling to the conflict shipboard and then performing rapid strikes from the ship via drop pod or thunderhawk. Rarely would they set up a base.

Technically, I guess you could therefore class IG as 'marines' by this definition.

Exactly.

And it's not to say that a ship full of imperial guardsmen in transit somewhere wouldn't defend itself, of course, but it seems a bit dubious, fluffiwse, that there would be regiments of guardsmen on battleships in case they got boarded.

Taffy17 wrote:How important is ship protection when your probably spending most of the journey in the warp?

That's sort of like asking how important ship protection is when you're spending most of the journey at sea.

On the one hand, not all of the journey happens in the deep void. They have to come out of the warp at some point and are thereafter subject to the threat of "costal" raiders (or worse, some DE waiting around until right after you drop into realspace and then attacking). And then there's all that time that they're "docked" which I assume usually means they're still hanging out in orbit and may or may not be adequately protected by other naval vessels or ground-based weapons. Plus, there's security you have to provide on the ship as well. A bunch of sailors get drunk and start a brawl on the ship, someone has to come in and break everything up / send people to the brig.

And the warp isn't exactly perfectly safe either. Demons could easily find their way on board, for example, and there are CSM fleets that operate in the warp as well, among other dangers.

Sienisoturi wrote:The uplifting primer mentions that the ships themselves are defended against boarding actions by on board armsmen, that are most likely very similar to imperial guard, and of course any on board troops will help the defences also.

I guess they could be something like arbites, but are they actually arbites?

 Ailaros wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
Could we not define marines as soldiers that primary fight FROM ships?

In this case, Space Marines certainly fit the bill - travelling to the conflict shipboard and then performing rapid strikes from the ship via drop pod or thunderhawk. Rarely would they set up a base.

Technically, I guess you could therefore class IG as 'marines' by this definition.

Exactly.

And it's not to say that a ship full of imperial guardsmen in transit somewhere wouldn't defend itself, of course, but it seems a bit dubious, fluffiwse, that there would be regiments of guardsmen on battleships in case they got boarded.

Taffy17 wrote:How important is ship protection when your probably spending most of the journey in the warp?

That's sort of like asking how important ship protection is when you're spending most of the journey at sea.

On the one hand, not all of the journey happens in the deep void. They have to come out of the warp at some point and are thereafter subject to the threat of "costal" raiders (or worse, some DE waiting around until right after you drop into realspace and then attacking). And then there's all that time that they're "docked" which I assume usually means they're still hanging out in orbit and may or may not be adequately protected by other naval vessels or ground-based weapons. Plus, there's security you have to provide on the ship as well. A bunch of sailors get drunk and start a brawl on the ship, someone has to come in and break everything up / send people to the brig.

And the warp isn't exactly perfectly safe either. Demons could easily find their way on board, for example, and there are CSM fleets that operate in the warp as well, among other dangers.

Sienisoturi wrote:The uplifting primer mentions that the ships themselves are defended against boarding actions by on board armsmen, that are most likely very similar to imperial guard, and of course any on board troops will help the defences also.

I guess they could be something like arbites, but are they actually arbites?

The primer does not mention anything about arbites, but I could imagine them being similar to less elite elysians.

Imperial Guard books mention it all the time.
They are just navy guard.
They hang out on the boat and make sure the IG don't riot/fight each other. They have shotguns/riot shields for enemy boarders.

Taffy17 wrote:
originally they were probably just called marines because GW thought it sounded cool.

I agree.

Also, because in the UK, Marines tends to mean 'really hard commando soldiers' nowadays, rather than 'regular soldiers who fight on a boat'. And considering the original Space Marines were more like a psychopathic special forces than superhuman warrior monks, it probably made more sense.

The Navy have, at various times, been referred to as maintaining a force of "Armsmen", "Naval Security" or "Naval Troopers" - in general, Armsmen is the generic term in books about Guard, Naval Security is used by Abnett and Naval Troopers are referred to by Mitchell.

@Ailaros - I'd say that even if a specific Imperial Navy detatchment is not posted on board, then certainly there will be a host of Armsmen aboard. These guys will most likely be organic in affiliation in that they will be either permanently assigned to the ship or serving on a long-term basis.

Some info from Rebirth (1st Ed.) by Nick Kyme (SPOILERS):

The primer does not mention anything about arbites, but I could imagine them being similar to less elite elysians.

The Arbites are not a military force, they're a police force. They are not mentioned in the Uplifting Primer because they aren't part of the Departmento Munitorum, and have no role in the Imperial Guard's mission.

If the IG arrive at a planet to wage war, all of the local Arbites are probably dead.

Navel Armsmen. Specifically Naval Security Battalions.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy#.VCH4FBa_JPs

Their purpose is to board enemy ships, repel boarding attempts, and maintain order on the ships themselves. They serve as the traditional Navel Marines.

Huh. Well alright then, thanks.

I suppose their casualties are probably usually rather low, so they don't need to have the same grand logistics system that the guard has. Hence it could just be a part of the navy, rather than being a semi-indepentent thing like the schola program.

Actually, I'd almost bet that it's a hereditary thing. Generations of enforcers just living on the ship...

The Adeptus Arbites have their own fleets and they do hunt down rogue admirals (and rebel Warmasters of the Imperial Guard) but they do not form part of the Imperial Navy, their fleets and troops are completely autonomous. The armies of the Arbites can and do patrol the length and breadth of the Imperium and can even fight limited wars on their own. (Source: Codex Imperialis, pg 34)

Isn't that a fairly outdated definition of Marines? Marines these days are more often just an expeditionary force to get boots on the ground stat that are more mobile than the army, but bring less bang.

The USMC is still a sub-division of the USN.

 Psienesis wrote:
The USMC is still a sub-division of the USN.

But they don't protect ships from boarders. Modern warfare-wise, ships just go "boom" from missiles.

Because naval combat is a non-issue in today's world.

 Psienesis wrote:
Because naval combat is a non-issue in today's world.

And thus Space Marines fit the modern definition of modern Marines, only more elite.

Sort of. "Naval" (being space, in the setting) is much more a thing than naval warfare is in these days. It seems that even the rinkiest of rinky-dink systems can throw up a couple battleships with frigate escorts to oppose the Imperial Retribution Fleet... where as the rinky-dink Third-World nations the US chooses to pick on are stuck using rowboats and shizz.

Yeah, Space Marines are Marines as has been defined since roughly WW2.

Navel Armsmen are Marines as defined prior to WW2(troops meant to fight a boarding action)

Of course, then you have things like the Badab War, where Marines are boarding each other's Battle Barges and Strike Cruisers and gak left, right and center and duking it out in the landing bays and the hull-breaches and all that stuff.

And then you got the UM inserting onto a Hive Ship to poison the damn thing.

And then you got dudes ramming and boarding a Necron ship.

And then you got dudes boarding a Space Hulk to go on another bug hunt.

So... kinda goes both ways, really. The Space Marines are marines in both uses of the term... just that we're presented with ground battles more often, because then tanks and stuff get involved, and that's more exciting.

Indeed, although Marines were certainly not created with the express purpose of being "marines". they were to be the perfect soldiers.

And being a 7ft super human clad in what is essentially a walking tank certainly makes you fearsome in close quarter combat. Which just so happens to be what ship boarding actions are.

Oh, definitely. Space Marines are designed to be an all-around warrior, in absolutely any environment.