Penal Marine

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## Tactical Overview

* **Still A Fighter:** Taken from the stockades and brigs, the Penal Marine is used as the Penal Divisions' answer to all infantry and vehicle threats with his rapid-fire assault rifle and portable rocket launcher.

* **Danger Close:** Of course, heavier enemies are dangerous enough that the South Korean military has given the penal division commanders an attached mortar company for their missions. The mortars are decently powerful, and have the benefit of being capable of embedding into the ground as mines. However, the mortars have a limited range, meaning that instead of targeting the bombardment, the penal marines literally have to fight through the mortars as they land around them.

* **Not Slated For Execution:** The penal marines have two problems with their deployments. First, they're expensive due to the sheer logistical necessity of making sure the penal troops are under control until they're on the field. The second is that they're incredibly vulnerable to aircraft assault.

* **Mad:** The Empire of Korea already has a reputation for sheer insanity in the face of adversity. So when a penal marine gains a reputation for excellence on the battlefield, nearly every enemy on the field learns to fear the most dangerous of the Penal Divisions.

## Background

*"I'll have you know, that me and my buddies were ambushed by the Vietcong back in Khe Sanh, and we wiped them out in twenty minutes."*

- Another Penal Marine recounting his experiences in Vietnam.
The Empire of Korea started out in desperation, and in a way is still desperate. Fighting the Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans all at once made their leadership realize that they needed a way to try and reinforce their front line fighting units post-war in 1955. Advantages were offered for service in the common frontline infantry units from free college education to a promised free plot of land. Few offers worked, as not even the most patriotic Korean man was willing to stare down a superheavy. Even with the draft, there was little to be done when Korean troops started to retreat in the middle of a massed Red Chinese wave assault.

The ruling monarchy of Korea needed to face the reality that they needed a way to work around the stigma of frontline combat that many Koreans realized was the reality of war behind the facade of the national propaganda. So the Empire's military brass started to look at their enemy's weaknesses and found that often, the Soviet style of warfare left huge stores of supplies in the rear either relatively unguarded or watched over by rear-line troops unsuited for battle. This gave the high command the realization that they did have a way to break the enemy's lines, now they needed the answer.

Unfortunately, the most elite troops were just too valuable on the actual frontline. They were the forces that could hold lines until other regular troops could retreat, that could strike back at the enemy at drive while regular forces held the line. They were the ones that would be sent to the Peacekeepers as South Korea's best. To send such men on these dangerous missions was deemed too costly if they were lost, and in one initial combat trial the command staff behind the plan lost a platoon of special operations troops to the North Korean guards.

Reviewing the operation, it was found that these special forces were skilled in combat but not in fighting below the belt. They tried to adhere to the rules of war when they needed to fight to survive, and in communist territory survival is everything. The special operators were too concerned with fighting as soldiers against communists that were fighting in their home territory. EoK commanders came to the realization that they couldn't use special operators anymore, they needed a different breed of soldier.

Meanwhile, a report came out that the Empire's military police were struggling to contain a large influx of new prisoners in the stockades and brigs. The charges ranged from desertion to robbery to murder of officers. The context of the charges didn't matter; if the deserters were running from a communist push over the border, that the thieves were trying take much needed medical supplies to keep themselves alive, or if the officers being murdered were glory-obsessed lunatics. Of course, sometimes the context did matter; pathological thieves and murderers, rapists and drug-addicts were starting to flood the rapidly-packing stockades. To make better used of these rejects (and preserve Allied support in the future), they couldn't execute every single prisoner. So the South Koreans lifted an idea from the Soviets.

The first mission for the penal divisions (after *months* of a training program so brutally harsh that the guards started to feel like prisoners themselves) was a raid on a North Korean port servicing the Soviet Pacific Fleet as well as hosting one of the few remaining Red Chinese ships still sailing. The mission was also incredibly dangerous, since the port was guarded by a detachment of North Korean naval landing parties and a detachment of Red Guard who kept the port as well. The plan involved a rapid insertion via an amphibious landing onto the rocky ground near the port, then moving into the port facility itself and destroying the vital facilities that repaired and supplied the ships. Despite a brutal close quarters fight that killed all but three of the penal unit (The unit's commander, a guard that accompanied the mission, and a penal NCO), the port facility and Red Chinese ship were all destroyed. Still able to use their publicly-acceptable special operators in the propaganda and on the front, and finding a solution to their "prisoner problem", the Empire began organizing and entire division of penal troopers, MP guards, and radical commanders willing to take command of such rejects, thieves, and murderers.

The Allies, as is their way, take exception to the problem. So the Koreans have decided to deploy their men to the Chinese and Vietnam theaters to quiet the objections. In a way, the Penal Divisions is the perfect force to use against an enemy as fluid and dangerous as the Vietcong. The Koreans have gained a new reputation in the jungles and borders as dangerous combatants capable of creating counter-ambushes, fighting right through the heaviest fire to get at their enemies. Before, the Vietcong were the masters of the jungle. Now even they fear to venture into areas confirmed to have "mad Koreans" nearby. Every time they appear near a biodome, Chinese nobles request for eight watchmen just to protect them while they sleep at night - a testament to the Koreans' ferocity only matching that of a jiang shi.