The counters representing the Royal Marines have not yet appeared in an Europa game. They should have been in Their Finest Hour, but were somehow ignored when drawing up the OB for that game. The mistake is not particularly significant since there were few counters anyway - the British Marines were and are a far smaller organisation than their US namesakes.

Maybe this needs to be emphasized. It is common knowledge that today the US Marines outnumber all other Marine Corps by a factor of 10 or more. It was equally true in the period of our Europa game. In World War 11 the US Marine Corps starting from a size comparable to that of the British was expanded to measure many divisions, with an air establishment larger than that of many air forces. In contrast the Royal Marines were miniscule, compared with the US Corps, or with the British Army. They were also far more specialized.

Some have said that the US Marine Corps was increased to become the Army of the Navy, or perhaps the Army of the Pacific, with all the services and combat arms of an Army. Nothing like this happened in Britain - the Royal Marines never exceeded the equivalent of one division. They remained a small force, groomed in theory to perform specialized tasks the British Army could not, or would not perform.

I suppose this disparity is the origin of the notorious story in which a US Marine asked a British Marine what the initials R.M. on his uniform meant. The answer was that R.M. stood for Real Marines. History does not record what happened next!

A Bit of History

The Royal Marines for much of their existance served exclusively on warships. Readers of Hornblower and other novels on Nelson's navy will know their duties - marksmen, landing parties, berthing between the officers and the men. In the 19th Century these duties were formalised.

One branch of the Marines - the "Blue," or Royal Marine Artillery, assumed responsibility for part of the heavy guns of warships - in our period this was traditionally X Turret. The other - the "Red," or Light Infantry, was responsible for landing parties.

During World War One this pattern began to change. Contrary to popular belief the Marines were rarely used for amphibious assaults, their main service being as regular infantry, forming part of the Naval Division on the Western Front. This was one of Churchill's sillier ideas - wasting trained sailors in the trenches when the U Boats were running riot in the Atlantic.

In 1939 the total Corps numbered some 10,000. Most were serving on ships, others attached to the various naval bases. In Europa terms they do not exist (unless as an intrinsic garrison of the big naval ports.) From our point of view they start to appear in early 1940 with the creation of brigades.

The story of the Royal Marines in Europa fits neatly into two parts:

The Royal Marines Missing Europa Units:

Introduction
1940-1943: The Marines
1943-1944: The Commandos