Central Galactic Marine Corps

The Central Galactic Marine Corps is a branch of the Central Galactic Defense Forces responsible for providing power projection and quick reaction against immediate threats on land, at sea, in the air, and in space, using the mobility provided by both the maritime and space branches of the Navy to swiftly deliver combined-arms task forces in any environment. It is administered under the Ministry of Defense, and operates space combat elements as well as air-ground task forces. The current Chief of the Defense Staff, the highest-ranked professional military officer, is a Marine Corps field marshal.
The Marine Corps has a storied history with roots in the naval infantry branches of various Earth militaries, in particular the UN Marines, the United States Marine Corps, the Royal Marines, and the Russian Naval Infantry. Its direct predecessors are the space-borne and seaborne infantry forces of the Terran Empire and its allies, especially the Imperial Navy Marine Corps.
The Marines are the première force employed by the Union military for amphibious warfare, orbital drops, and orbital combat operations. The Marines operate ground forces and tactical aviation units from sea-going vessels, air stations, ground bases, transport spacecraft, and orbital stations, providing rapid response to emerging threats on provincial and colony worlds, and "tip of the spear" shock forces in expeditionary warfare.
Due to the Marine Corps' smaller size, command appointments are significantly fewer than in the Army or Navy, and promotions are highly competitive. Marine officers are highly respected, and Marines maintain a particular esprit de corps.
== History ==
The Central Galactic Marine Corps traces its history to the preceding naval infantry traditions of the states that joined together to form the CGU. Most particularly, it is based on the Terran Imperial Navy Marine Corps and the Orionese Royal Marines, which were in turn based on the Marine traditions of the United States and United Kingdom of Earth's past. To a lesser extent, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese traditions impacted the Marines' history, but the predominant influence was uniquely Anglo-American. Its organizational structure, its emphasis on combined-arms expeditionary warfare, all-environment capability, and high readiness were developed directly from the USMC, which provided the bulk of ground troops to the United Nations Security Forces. Even after the creation of the Terran Federation in 2189, it was not fully integrated into the Federal Forces, and remained a separate ground force to promote American interests and protect American-sponsored colonies within the Federation. It was only after the dissolution of separate Earth nations in 2247 that the USMC and the British Royal Marines were rolled into the Terran Federal Marine Corps, and formed its central cadre. The TFMC sustained these traditions, and imparted this influence on the Republic of Orion as well after Orionese independence in 2276. The TFMC was itself re-formed as the Imperial Navy Marine Corps upon the foundation of the Terran Empire in 2430.
The INMC formed the quick-reaction forces of the Terran Empire, especially after the development of practical Alcubierre drives enabling near-instantaneous translight mobility within 1000 light years of a Marine base. This development led to the complete reorganization of the Empire's strategic force positioning. No longer would it be required to station large Army Group-sized forces on every colony world to maintain order and provide for crisis response or counterinsurgency. Instead, garrisons could be comparatively light, typically a single Army division and a Marine Expeditionary Force if the environment was amenable to Marine operations. If a crisis emerged, such as a sustained insurgency or a planetary coup d'etat, further Marine and Army joint forces would be dispatched from "hub" worlds and orbital stations, aboard dedicated troop carrier spacecraft, and deploy to the "hot zone". This proved to be highly effective in suppressing revolts, especially in the bloody civil war of the Late Empire period. From the 2640 to 2665, the Colonial Liberation Army organized numerous rebellions on colony worlds, and Imperial Marines served as the "tip of the spear" in all counterinsurgency operations.
With the start of the Great War, the Imperial Marines and their Orionese and Sagittarian counterparts were redeployed. Initially, the Orion military acted as a static defense force against Soviet landing forces, holding bastion worlds to effectively stall for time while the Royal Marines were mobilized to strike and liberate these worlds. Once done, they joined the INMC in a counteroffensive into Soviet border colonies, undertaking a "planet-hopping" campaign to take world after world and deprive the Soviets of raw materials. At the same time, Imperial Marines were also deployed alongside the Sagittarian Space Marine Corps to fend off Cassiopeian and Viridian assaults, and hold ground. The war in the Soviet Front took precedence for the Terrans, and much of the fighting in the spinward quadrant of the Galaxy was undertaken by the Terran Empire's allies, predominantly in fleet actions.
After the collapse of the Soviet Republic in 2669, several fleet Marine forces were redeployed into two fronts: roughly half were sent to conduct orbital drop and clearing operations in vryst territory, and half were sent to reinforce a second planet-hopping campaign in the spinward region and begin operations against the goliath Kasian Empire. Casualties mounted, however, against the vryst and the situation was deemed dire. Marine special forces officer Céleste Beaumont was promoted to a General rank and appointed the Emperor's personal aide-de-camp in late 2670, and she advised on Marine deployments in the vryst region. Alarmed by skyrocketing combat deaths, and by reports of casualty projections to complete the campaign, she elucidated the Beaumont Doctrine as a means to save Marine lives and speed up the vryst campaign. Her strategy was a rousing success, and the Imperial Marines were quickly redeployed again into the Kasian and Shrike fronts.
In the final stages of the Great War, despite the widespread use of the Beaumont Doctrine, Imperial Marines suffered staggering losses against air defenses
== Structure ==
The Marine Corps is administered by the Department of Defense Forces, and is part of the colloquial "Naval Service" . The Commandant-General of the Marine Corps is the chief of the CGMC's military staff and the most senior officer in the Corps (unless a Marine is serving as Chief or Vice Chief of the Defense Staff). The Commandant-General is responsible to the Defense Staff for organizing, recruiting, training, and equipping the Marine Corps so that its forces are ready for deployment under the operational command of the combatant high commanders. The Marine Corps is organized into five principal subdivisions: Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC), Marine Forces Command (MARCOM), Marine Special Forces Command (MARSOC), Marine Reserve Command (MARRES), and the Supporting Establishment. The Supporting Establishment is not a single command, but rather a grouping of two major commands: Marine Logistics Command (MARLOG) Marine Combat Development Command (MARDEV); and several direct-reporting units: Installations Command, Acquisition and Systems Command, and the Marine Band.
The basic framework for deployable Marine units is the Marine Task Force, composed of command, ground, aviation, and logistics elements integrated into a single combined-arms force capable of autonomous operations, or acting as as the vanguard of a joint operation. The three permanent operational structures are the Fleet Marine Force, the Marine Field Force, and the Marine Expeditionary Force. The Fleet Marine Force is a combined command of all Marine units stationed in a particular astrographic area, commanded by a Field Marshal, and composed of several Marine Field Forces. A Marine Field Force, under the command of a General or Colonel General, is roughly analogous to a Field Army and is composed of two or more Marine Expeditionary Forces. A MEF is a corps-sized task force, commanded by a Lieutenant General, and is typically composed of one or more Marine Divisions, a division-sized Marine Air Wing, a division-sized Marine Logistics Group, a regiment-sized Marine Intelligence Group, and a special operations Marine Raider regiment. A Marine Expeditionary Force also contains the headquarters units for subordinate Marine Task Forces: generally, two Marine Brigades and four Marine Assault Units, which can be activated when needed. 
Below these three permanent structures, elements within these units can be grouped into smaller Marine Task Forces. The largest of these composite task forces is a Marine Brigade, composed of a headquarters group, and three regimental-sized combat units: a reinforced Marine Regiment, a Marine Air Group, and a Marine Logistics Regiment. The reinforced ground element, called a Regimental Combat Team, is composed of a Marine Regiment plus appropriate artillery, armor, combat engineer, special operations, and orbital assault battalions.
The smallest combined-arms task force is a regiment-sized Marine Assault Unit, composed of a headquarters company, a reinforced Marine Rifle Battalion, a composite Marine Air Squadron, and a Combat Logistics Battalion. The reinforced ground force, called a Battalion Landing Team, is composed of a Rifle Battalion and company- or platoon-sized artillery, armored reconnaissance, armor, and combat engineer units. The Composite Squadron as its air element is draw from a Marine Air Wing organic to the MEF that the MAU is organized from; typically, it includes several flights of medium- and heavy-lift helicopters, attack helicopters, orbital drop aerodynes, and a flight of ground-attack fixed wing aircraft. A Marine Assault Unit is structured so that the entirety of its personnel and materiel can be carried in the planetary assault configuration of a Dreadnought class battleship.
Most Marine units are stationed as quick response forces on colony planets, especially ones with significant enough ocean cover as to make amphibious assaults a necessary capability and viable option for military response to local crises. However, all Marine forces and equipment are trained and capable of orbital deployment (as opposed to orbital assault), and some units are stationed in orbit on military space stations. The components of each Task Force type are kept at a high state of readiness, and cycled into training and deployment phases to ensure that at least one Marine Brigade and two Marine Assault Units within a MEF are capable of immediate deployment to a crisis zone.