jezza93
Sergeant Knight at Arms
Royal Marine Light Infantry
History of the Royal Marines
| On 5 April 1755, His Majesty's Marine Forces, fifty Companies in three Divisions, headquartered at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, were formed by Order of Council under Admiralty control. Initially all field officers were Royal Navy officers as the Royal Navy felt that the ranks of Marine field officers were largely honorary. This meant that the farthest a Marine officer could advance was to Lieutenant Colonel. It was not until 1771 that the first Marine was promoted to Colonel. This attitude persisted well into the 1800s. During the rest of the 18th century, they served in numerous landings all over the world, the most famous being the landing at Bellisle on the Brittany coast in 1761. They also served in the American War of Independence, being particularly courageous in the Battle of Bunker Hill led by Major John Pitcairn. These Marines also often took to the ship's boats to repel attackers in small boats when RN ships on close blockade were becalmed. In 1802, largely at the instigation of Admiral the Earl St. Vincent, they were titled the Royal Marines by King George III. The Royal Marine Artillery (RMA) was formed as a separate unit in 1804 to man the artillery in bomb ketches. This had been done by the Royal Regiment of Artillery, but a lawsuit by a Royal Artillery officer resulted in a court decision that Army officers were not subject to Naval orders. As their uniforms were the blue of the Royal Regiment of Artillery this group was nicknamed the "Blue Marines" and the Infantry element, who wore the scarlet uniforms of the British infantry, became known as the "Red Marines", often given the derogatory nickname "Lobsters" by sailors. |
| _______________________________________ Company staff Captain Peter Broetz 1st Lieutenant Edmund Phipps 2nd Lieutenant James Grant Warrant Officer 1st class John MacKay Warrant Officer 2nd class Richard Brittanique Serjeant John Stern Corporal ... Company Ranks Captain;Cpt First Lieutenant;1Lt Second Lieutenant;2Lt Non-Commissioned Ranks. Warrant Officer first class;WO1 Warrant Officer second class;WO2 Colour Serjeant;CSjt Serjeant;Sjt Corporal;Cpl Enlisted men. Lance Corporal;LCpl Marine;N/A Recruit;Rct |
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy suffered from manpower problems in the Marines, and so regular Infantry units from the Army often had to be used as shipboard replacements. In the War of 1812, escaped American slaves were formed into the Corps of Colonial Marines and fought at Bladensburg. Other Royal Marines units raided up and down Chesapeake Bay, fought in the Battle of New Orleans and later helped capture Fort Bowyer in Mobile Bay in the last action of the war.
In 1855 the Infantry forces were renamed the Royal Marines Light Infantry (RMLI) and in 1862 the name was slightly altered to Royal Marine Light Infantry. The Royal Navy did not fight any other ships after 1850 (until 1914) and became interested in landings by Naval Brigades. In these Naval Brigades, the function of the Royal Marines was to land first and act as skimishers ahead of the sailor Infantry and Artillery. This skirmishing was the traditional function of Light Infantry. For most of their history, British Marines had been organised as fusiliers. It was not until 1923 that the separate Artillery and light Infantry forces were formally amalgamated into the Corps of Royal Marines. In the rest of the 19th Century the Royal Marines served in many landings especially in the First and Second Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) against the Chinese. These were all successful except for the landing at the Mouth of the Peiho in 1859, where Admiral Sir James Hope ordered a landing across extensive mud flats even though his Brigadier, Colonel Thomas Lemon RMLI, advised against it. During the Crimean War in 1854 and 1855, three Royal Marines earned the Victoria Cross, two in the Crimea and one in the Baltic. The use of the new "torpedoes" (mines) by the Russians in the Baltic made the campaign there particularly suited to RM raiding and reconnaissance parties. Landings by the British and French Navy and Marines in 1854 were repulsed by the Russians at Petropavlovsk on the Pacific coast of Russia.
The Royal Marines also played a prominent role in the Boxer Rebellion in China (1900), where a Royal Marine earned a Victoria Cross. For the first part of the 20th Century, the Royal Marines' role was the traditional one of providing shipboard Infantry for security, boarding parties and small-scale landings. The Marines' other traditional position on a Royal Navy ship was manning 'X' and 'Y' (the aftermost) gun turrets.
Pursuing a career in the Marines had been considered social suicide through much of the 18th and 19th centuries since Marine officers had a lower standing than their counterparts in the Royal Navy. An effort was made in 1907 through the common entry or "Selbourne Scheme" to reduce the professional differences between RN and RM officers through a system of common entry that provided for an initial period of service where both groups performed the same roles and underwent the same training. Upon promotion to Lieutenant officers could opt for permanent service with the Royal Marines. The scheme was abandoned after three years when only two of the new entrants chose this option over that of service as naval officers, for whom promotion prospects were much greater. At the outbreak of World War I the Corps was 58 subalterns under establishment.
[size=12pt]About the Royal Marine Light Infantry.
The Royal Marines Light Infantry is a 'what if' regiment for if the Union had attempted to intercept a British arms convoy headed to the Southern states and the situation which would have arisen out of such an action. Ingame we primarily play as the Confederacy as the 4th Alabama. We fight in both Skirmisher and line tactics depending on the situation as per the nature of the actual Royal Marines Light Infantry.It is also worth noting that as we are a merge of two NW regiments we do not attend many events but a simple one per week,perhaps two depending on demand. If you should like to join the Royal Marine Light Infantry and show these Yanks how to fight!
Well,simply ask in this thread posting your steam name and I will contact you as soon as feasible.
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Well we have left it an awfully long time now, was this to lure them into a false sense of security so they would never see us coming? 
