Cerberus: Bravo Company (1/9 Bn)

1st Battalion 9th Marines: "The Mountaineers"

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Insignia of the 3rd Marine Division.

The First Battalion, Ninth Marines is a battalion-level light infantry unit composed of infantry Marines and support personnel. It comprises approximately 900 individuals and falls under the command of the 9th Marine Regiment in the 3rd Marine Division. Its units are deployed across the various battlestars based out of Aeskil Anchorage, one of several forward staging areas for battlestar groups stationed at the Armistice Line.

1/9 Marines is a relatively new unit, created and activated on Sagittaron in the first year of the Cylon War. It was constructed around a core of volunteer militiamen drawn from the predominately rural Colony, which had survived the initial month of the Cylon rebellion relatively unscathed, and supplemented by scattered cohorts of professional soldiers fleeing from Colonies as far away as Caprica, Leonis, and Picon. Hunkered down in makeshift caves dug in to avoid Cylon bombardment, these men and women were officially called the Mountaineers by the new Colonial government. However, stuck in those mountains for month after interminable month while the Fleet built up its strength, the soldiers of 1/9 Marines learned to call themselves by a different name entirely: The Frakkin' Goats, after those animals whose stringy flesh they subsisted on during their two and a half years in hiding.

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Insignia of the 9th Marine Regiment.

To the bitter disappointment of its commanding officer, Lt. Col. Audie Eliot, 1/9 Marines did not participate in any of the major urban fighting that characterized the later years of the Cylon War. Instead, the Mountaineers' specialty meant they drew the difficult and inglorious task of recapturing the mines of Canceron from Cylon control. Operation Shattered Crab — originally conceived as a lightning strike — became a grueling four-year slog through the planet's inhospitable southern pole until at last the Marines uprooted the last of the Cylon forces entrenched in the region. Their hard-won triumph crippled the Cylon military machine and loosened the pressure on the Colonial Fleet, but Eliot would not live to see his Marines' accomplishments receive the praise they deserved. Killed by a buried Cylon mine just days before the end of the war, Eliot was posthumously awarded the Colonial Medal of Bravery for his service.

After the signing of the Treaty of Cimtar, 1/9 Marines remained garrisoned on Canceron, and several of its Marine Rifle platoons were retrained to the Military Police specialty so better to perform their peacetime function. They would remain stationed there for the next eleven years, until the next great wave of Fleet expansion required experienced MPs to provide ship security on the brand-new battlestars being rolled out from the Scorpian Shipyards. The Mountaineers have been serving on the Armistice Line ever since, rotated from battlestar group to battlestar group with hardly any time spent on terra firma.

The motto of the Mountaineers is Pro aris et focis: "For our altars and our hearths."

Bravo Company

Like the six other companies that make up the 1/9 Marines, Bravo Company has served aboard battlestars for the past thirty-odd years. In addition to its company headquarters unit, the Company fields two military police platoons and one Marine rifle platoon, to which have been attached a combat medicine detachment of fifteen Navy corpsmen (three to each platoon and six to company HQ). Bravo Company's command structure is outlined in the diagram below.

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Company HQ

Bravo Company is led by a Company Commander rating O5 (MAJ). The Company Commander is assisted by the Company Executive Officer, usually an O4 (CPT), and the Company Sergeant, usually an E7 (GSGT). He also can draw upon the expertise of an ensign fresh out of the Academy or Officer Candidate School: a transitional role intended to permit him to gain experience before rising further up the ranks. This ensign is a limited duty officer and cannot command.

The HQ unit also has four staff officers, their aides, and various and sundry clerks and administrative personnel. Each staff officer has a particular area of expertise and counsels the company CO in military matters. Contrary to the Colonial Fleet, which makes a formal distinction between line and staff officer, all Marine officers are authorized to command a combat unit. However, staff officers rarely exercise this ability and do so only at the pleasure of their CO. Because of the limitations of deployments, every Marine officer will serve double-duty as a staff officer in some respect.

Company Adjutant/Personnel (S1)

Company Intelligence/Security Officer (S2)

Company Operations/Training Officer (S3)

Company Logistics Officer (S4)

Platoons

The Company is further subdivided into three platoons. Each is led by a Platoon Commander, usually an O2 (LTJG). He is advised by a Platoon Sergeant, usually an experienced E6 (SSGT); however, this post can be held by Marines as low as E4 (CPL) if required. Each platoon is also assigned three Navy corpsmen, who report to the Chief Medical Officer but are fully-qualified Marines and may be detached to accompany any given squad if required.

Platoons consist of four squads of twelve men each.

The Squad

The squad is the basic fighting unit of the CMC, comprised of eleven Marines and the Squad Leader (SL) — a non-commissioned officer rating E4 (CPL) or above. The squad is further divided into three four-man fireteams, with the squad leader acting as leader of Fireteam One. Each member of the squad has an assigned role.

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  • Team Leader (TL) The team leader executes instructions from and assists the squad leader in the performance of a task. The TL controls the movement of his fire team and directs areas of fire. The TL is typically an E3 (LCPL) or E4 (CPL) and serves as a rifleman.
  • Rifleman (R): The rifleman is armed with with a carbine or assault rifle. Given the heavy armor of the Centurions, the assault rifle is usually the weapon of choice.
  • Grenadier (G): The grenadier is armed with a carbine or assault rifle with an attached underbarrel grenade launcher. The grenades are fragmentary and designed for safe use aboard ship, and they are one of the most effective weapons against Centurions.
  • Automatic rifleman (AR): The automatic rifleman is armed with a squad automatic weapon (machine gun). The high stopping power and rate of fire of the SAW make it ideal for confronting bunched groups.

If necessary, one squad member certified in field communication is given a long-range backpack wireless and acts as the Wireless Operator (WIRELO). A Marine's team assignment and role is not static and may vary from operation to operation.

Mission

III Marine Divsion deploys and is employed as a Marine Task Force (MTF) in support of a Fleet or Marine Combatant Commander's requirements for contingency response or Major Theater War. With appropriate augmentation, it serves as the core element of a Joint Task Force (JTF) to Colonial Fleet operations, and it prepares and deploys combat-ready MTFs to support and provide crisis response capability for COCOM operations.

Recent Deployments

  • Battlestar Cerberus (BS-132), current station
  • Battlestar Cosmic (BS-108), 2036-2040 AE, 48 months
  • Battlestar Themis (BS-111), 2028-2036 AE, 96 months

Command Staff

OOC Thematic Information

If you're playing a Marine, please click here to learn more about how the department operates aboard Battlestar Cerberus. If your Marine is an MP, please also read the relevant sections of the Military Procedures page and the Military Law page to get a better idea of your IC power and authority!

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