"Landing parties and Marines question?" Topic

Hi all,

After chatting with a friend I have a few queries:

(1) Would the sharpshooters in the rigging be Marines or other crew?
(2) How would landing parties be composed, and how armed?
(3) How many muskets would a ship carry normally, would there be only firearms for the Marines and Officers, or would they be more plentiful?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

(1) Sharpshooters would normally be in the tops, not the rigging and probably mostly marines.

(2) How long is a piece of string ? Varied by situation, availability and the job they had to do. Crew for work with explosives or demolition or if signalling was needed. Marines for firepower or to impress the locals.

(3) I'm sure there was some sort of standard allocation by rate and duty but, as with almost every regulation in the Navy, it could be varied 'at the need of the Service'.

I've seen a table somewhere that breaks down the marine compliment by ship rate, but I don't know where.

link

The answer is. "it depends." You can generally find information on specific landing actions broken down by marines and sailors.

I just found this:

link

For the Marine compliments as noted they depended on ship rate – a first rate as noted had about 100 Marines (crew of 800 or so) and down all the way to 25 – 30 on a frigate (crew 150 – 240 or so)

Marines were positioned in the tops and various deck positions to shoot, crew in the rigging had better things to do than fire muskets and it's difficult to go out on a spar with one slung on your back. A number of marines were always detailed to stand sentry at all major gangways and stair cases (and outside officer's cabins when not cleared for action).

For boarding parties, pistols, cutlasses and half-pikes were deemed more useful than muskets (especially when fighting in confined spaces). In consequence, the number of 'spare muskets' would be limited (though it wouldn't take many to arm a decent proportion of a frigate's crew). The armament for 'cutting out' expeditions would be similar because they would need to climb aboard the enemy ship (quietly, if possible).

In a landing party not all marines would ever be used, some would remain on board as sentries because they were also the ship's security / police force against mutiny, petty larceny and such. Interestingly, they were bunked away from the sailors and were not allowed to fraternise with them for that reason. At the inquiry into the mutiny on the frigate Hermione it was strongly noted that the marine sentry outside Captain Pigot's cabin took no action at the approach of the mutineers.

My Friend thanks you all for your very useful answers – yes, I knew people fought from the fighting tops not on the rigging, it was a simple mistake made in haste!