Marine Speeder Talon One

BARD PAPER: DANI5008

In 1200, the first Mongoose and Ferret attack speeders began rolling off the assembly lines of Stryker Aviation's assembly plant on Aubaine. Capt. Crimson O'Dare of the Third Brigade of the RC Marine Corp, began thinking of using these craft for the Marine. She felt that the Marines needed some form of close air support, other than grav tanks. Capt O'Dare developed a plan and presented it to her commanding officer. He liked the plan and gave approval for her to present it to brigade headquarters. She soon realized that it would take more than a few presentations to get her plan approved. Over the next year she presented dozens of times, to brigade HQ, to the marine commandant, the material command, the secretary general, the armed services subcommittee of the Assembly of worlds and dozens of other groups which she has forgotten by now. Finally in 1201, she was put in command of 12 Mongoose speeders and told to figure out what the speeders could do and what they could do for the Marines in particular.

Capt O'Dare had quietly been recruiting potential pilots and weapon officers. Within two months she had finalized her team and had them assigned to her. Another bureaucratic battle ensued over what to call the new unit. Some officers wanted to call the unit a squadron, while others thought it should be made into two squadrons and compose a wing, while others pushed for calling it a flight. O'Dare didn't want to be forced into making decisions about how to deploy her unit, before she had figured out how to use them in combat. Perhaps it would be better to use the 12 speeders together or break them up in to four or three speeder teams. She also did not want to be held to what tactics had been used in the past. Imperial marine doctrine was designed for TL-15 equipment, it was likely that TL-12 equipment should be operated in a different fashion. To make a clean break with the past, she decided to call the unit a "talon". Since that was a new designation, she could define what it meant, how it should be organized and how it should be used.

Between 1201 and 1202, the unit has trained relentlessly. The pilots have spent hundreds of hours in the machines learning their every nuance. Capt O'Dare and her officers have experimented with dozens of ways to use the speeders in a variety of missions. Speeder Talon One has participated in two war games. The first, "Operation Brilliant Star", was in late 1201 with the Nike Nimbus army, with the Nike Nimbus army playing the part of hostile TED. This exercise was invaluable, though the unit did not distinguish itself. Many mistakes were made and in several scenarios the unit suffered catastrophic causalities. O'Dare was not discouraged by this, and realized that this was a valuable learning experience.

The next war game was "Operation Red Dog" in VI 1202. It pitted the Talon with other units of Third Brigade, against the Baldur defense force. This war game, showed the progress that the unit had made. Several times, the unit was used to great success creating openings for the other marines to exploit. Fueled by the experience, Capt. O'Dare began pushing for an operational use of her unit. When she hears of a mission, that she thinks her unit can help support she lobbies the commanding officer. So far she has not been able to persuade anyone to use her troops. It has only been a few months, and she feels her time will come soon.

In the meantime, the unit continues to train and maintains a high morale. The unit regards itself as an elite unit, even though it hasn't done anything. The members feel that it is only a matter of time before they prove themselves. The unit consists of 12 operational pilot/gunner teams, with three backup groups. Each team trains and operates as a team. If one member of a team is taken ill or injured another team replaces them. The pilots and gunners are not necessarily officers. O'Dare recruited the best pilots. This has created a bit of an odd hierarchy in the unit as some of the most experience pilots are not enlisted. Capt. O'Dare is working to get her enlisted pilots promoted to officers to ease some of these headaches. In the meantime, she runs a fairly loose command structure, with little regard for rank. In addition to the pilot/gunner teams, the unit has a group of 20 maintenance personal, who work to ensure that the pilots get peak performance from their speeders. Capt O'Dare pilots one of the speeders. The members of the talon are experienced troops with most of them having 1 or 2 terms in the marines before switching to the Talon. The pilot/gunners use either the Veteran or Experienced template. Members of the ground crew can be anything from Novice to Elite.

The main use of the talon would be for air superiority against indigenous aircraft and close air support. Capt. O'Dare quickly realized that the speeders are not grav tanks, and will not use them in that role. The unit is part of the Third Brigade of the RC Marine, but it is not assigned to a battalion. Until command figures out how to use the unit, it will be separte from the command stucture.