Volunteer Marine

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## Tactical Analysis

* **And They Shall Know no Fear:** The Volunteer Marines are some of the very best basic troopers of any of the armies involved in this strange, violent world. Equipped with 20mm bolters able to shred infantry, light vehicles, battlesuits, and helicopters and even menace heavier vehicles if they can flank them or focus on their components, their power armour makes them uncrushable, immune or resistant to most RBC attacks, and lets them shrug off most standard anti-personnel weapons like rain drops.

* **Here comes the Ball Room Blitz:** When they need to deal with a large number of enemies at once or need to EMP incoming enemies, they can charge up and fire off a ball-lightning blast that will fill the area with enough electricity to reduce humans to skeletons and steel to slag while overloading most electrical systems, temporarily stunning them and allowing them to go around and attack the flanks of the disabled enemy with impunity or push through the opened hole in the enemy's lines.

* **The Bulwark against the Bulwark:** While some of the very best in the world, Volunteer Marines do have limits. The size of their rounds limits their ammunition and so they tend to be quite conservative with their shots, reducing their effectiveness at suppression. They are also vulnerable to medium calibre weapons such as autocannons to anti-infantry, and fixed wing aircraft which are significantly more difficult to properly get a bead on than helicopters.

* **Crowd-Pleaser:** New bolter scaled burst warhead munitions are being trialled by select Volunteer Marines along with Ball & Chain Lightning Casters, the former erupting in eerie blue bursts of overpressure and superheated molten metal and the latter creating secondary ball lightning blasts upon impact, greatly increasing their effectiveness against high evasion targets and large numbers of foes. However, as these weapons are bleeding edge and the risk of collateral damage is high, they will only be handed out to proven Volunteers, at least until the time comes that the collateral damage issue is resolved.

## Unit History

*"Still trying to process the scale of this dub comrade."*

- Sergeant Debrah James after the victory at Khe Sanh
One of the most prominent aspects of Communist thought is its focus on internationalism, as opposed to the Allied concept of multinationalism which is more about a fraternity of cooperating nations and peoples, internationalism is about transcending the concept of nation and state altogether. The Communist cause is not merely of a brotherhood of countries, but of doing away with the barriers between them altogether. Anyone from any country can sign up for the Communist International Brigades of the Communist International, and if they meet the standards, may apply for the Revolutionary International Volunteer Army, an elite force formed at the suggestion of the Comintern ultraleft such as Amadeo Bordiga to provide for a military force solely devoted to the Comintern itself rather than to the USSR or any other revolutionary state. One that would know no nation and would be commanded by its own chain of command tied to the authority of the Congress of the Comintern.

To make a long story short, the initial experiment was a success, with the soldiers proving to be reliable, skilled, and able to make effective use of their equipment. However there was the question of how to get them where they needed to go promptly. Compared to the National Red Armies of the Soviet bloc or to the International Brigades themselves, the Volunteer Army was a rather small force made out of those who could handle the worst fighting and were willing to be sent into it. Spreading them out would dilute their strength, but even with the strength of Communist logistics, they could not always arrive on time to serve where needed. Thus Sergei Korolev, who had the unrelenting and undiluted support of Cherdenko as well as Lev Sedov; Chairman of the Comintern; had the solution of simply putting the bulk of their operations in space.

With the massive degree of space travel expansion already being undertaken to make use of asteroid resources, control the orbital lanes, gather energy with solar panels that could be beamed back down, develop advanced communications and control networks, and weaponize the inky black void this was a matter of adding a new department to the operations. With access to space as well as craft able to enter and leave it as well and newly developed drop pods that would allow them to land from orbit with precision and speed, they could quickly concentrate their numbers where needed and respond to situations as the International STAVKA notices them. But to maximise the effect of their numbers they also needed better equipment, leading to the development of new weapons and technologies.

Power Armour and advanced EVA communications were relied on to ensure they could endure the fire they'd receive on their rather dramatic entrances while quickly coordinating as needed and receiving the orders they required, and new weapons would be developed to ensure that they had the firepower to do their tasks. The much celebrated engineer Valerya Alekseeva and her team would design a new sort of rifle, the "bolter" which would combine gun-launching with a rocket propulsion system and variable warheads to allow for superior penetration and versatility at the expense of ammo count, With rounds in 20 to 30mm and even larger calibres, these would be paired with the KSB-62 shock caster attachment shortly before world war two to replace older EMP grenade launchers and retain effectiveness against infantry.

These rifles could punch through light vehicles and make messes out of many other powered armour suits, nevermind conventionally armoured infantry, and their standard armour-piercing mass reactive high explosive warheads would be nearly invariably fatal as the projectile detonated once it had detected it had penetrated deep enough. With the shock caster, they could gum up advances, stunning whatever they do not fry and thus allowing teammates to either bypass or finish off the immobilised troops, and with their relatively harshly limited ammo in mind, they were given quite literally cutting-edge magnetic amplified vibro-blades, including a ceremonial short sword, two bayonets, and wrist blades for "death punches" when needed, as well as a modified carbine well suited to function as a sort of pistol in their gauntleted hands.

This certainly made them a significant investment, but as each was already only being taken from the best who had volunteered themselves to such a service, and their doctrine was entirely built around choosing their engagements and withdrawing before getting bogged down, it was a more than fair trade for the world's best.

### WW3 History

The Volunteer Marines had some prior deployments before World War Three in ongoing proxy wars in Asia, but it would be the "Krasnaya Molinya" offensives where they would storm across Europe, North Africa, and Allied West Asia in barely any time at all that solidified their reputation. The Turkish Republic, which had been overrun in the Second World War in support of the Turkish communists only for the Soviets to have to withdraw in the face of Allied landings to free up troops to stop Operation Blackbeard, had immensely hardened itself since the last war both internally and externally. The Turkish left had largely gone underground or fled to the Soviet Bloc in Bulgaria, the Arab countries, or Iran to name a few; and while Kurdish, Arab, Armenian, and Assyrian resistance movements were still keeping up the fight , Turkey still kept up impressive fortifications.

With the strength of its coastal fortifications and the difficulty of going through the Caucasian mountains, the Turks believed that they would be able to concentrate southwards to stop offensives by Soviet-aligned Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Iran or downwards from the Soviet Balkans and the USSR itself. However, as yet another great revolt rocked Turkey as its long-suppressed minorities saw a moment of weakness and pounced, the volunteers would drop into important positions ahead of the VDV, Spetsnaz, and Soviet Space forces that would arrive shortly after to reinforce their beachheads.

At the battle of Batman, a single regiment of a thousand Volunteers, the 333rd "Fire Falcons" most of them Marines, would rout the entire Turkish 1st Armoured division, tearing into its supply lines and its infantry strength while leaving its tanks inoperable by the time the paratroopers arrived in force to further the vertical envelopment ahead of the advancing Iraqi army. Even the deployment of the 557th Peacekeeper "Blue Barriers of Bavaria" Brigade could not stop them, as the Fire Falcons picked off the shorter-ranged peacekeepers with impunity and used their power suits to reach vantage points normal men could not hope to jump to and reduce their armoured complement to wrecks and wrecks with technically working engines.

While they needed ammo dropped for them from space or brought in by plane several times throughout the 48-hour-long clash, by the time it was over, all the Fire Falcons were still alive (though some were injured) while the Turkish 1st armour division was no longer combat effective and the 557th Brigade was forced to surrender with heavy casualties. Such operations would be dwarfed by the capture of Ankara, where the Turkish republic's hopes for an epic patriotic defence of the fatherland were worn through with both internal sabotage by revolutionaries both of communist and national liberationist mindsets as well as extensive Volunteer drops across the region surrounding the Turkish capital.

With the bulk of the Turkish army's chance for retreat cut off by the Volunteers at Malazgirt, or Manzikert as it was once known, Ankara would be the site of the final surrender of the remainder of the Turkish armed forces, their hopes of evacuating by sea cut off and the volunteers raising the red banner on the presidential palace. In a now iconic film sequence, Volunteer Marine Rachel Gurion shot the Peacekeeper Bryan O'Neil who was the last man standing at the defence of the rooftop in the chest and with a bolt pistol before planting her flag as his bloodied ruin of a lower body fell to the ground below, marking the symbolic end of the battle of Ankara,