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The United States Colonial Marines (USCM) are a group of Fictional Space Marine s first introduced in the movie '' Aliens ''. They have taken a prominent role in the successive games, comics, and novels set in the Aliens series. The actual details of the force are not expressly revealed in the movies. An associated book '''' by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood was published by Boxtree in 1995. HISTORY The USCM is the United States "force-in-readiness" who are at all times ready to operate in environments far from home soil. By the year 2179 the force has roughly 165,000 marines divided into four Division s, four aerospace Wing s, and numerous support groups. There is also a reserve division and aerospace wing with an additional manpower of 50,000. The USCM, along with the US Army , are part of the United Americas Allied Command. The primary duty of the USCM is to maintain the security of the United Americas signatories and colonies, and serves as the vanguard of any major operation. The USCM have fought on more then two dozen worlds including Tientsin (8 Eta Bootis A III), Helene 215 and Linna 349. ORGANIZATION The fighting groups are organized into three Marine Space Forces, each has primary responsibility for security in their areas. A Marine Space Force consists of one or two Colonial Marine Divisions and a Colonial Marine Aerospace Wing, for ground and air/space combat respectively. They are:
EQUIPMENT The Colonial Marines are likely best known for their use of the M41A Pulse Rifle , a futuristic Assault Rifle with an underslung Grenade Launcher , and for the ''' M56 Smart Gun ''', a large Machine Gun which is actually worn by the user using a sophisticated harness mechanism. Featured in the movie Aliens are also the '''M240 Flamethrower ''' and the '''M4A3 Pistol ''' and the UA-571C Sentry Guns. Also Hicks is seen carrying a personal weapon of his, an "old fashioned" military Pump-action Shotgun , in his own words "For my personal protection". For more details see Weapons Of The Colonial Marines . THE MARINES OF ''ALIENS'' In the 1986 film '' Aliens '', the Colonial Marines were prominent characters. The actors playing the marines were required to read '' Starship Troopers '' as part of their training prior to filming. There were a total of thirteen featured Marines if Bishop the android is to be included. They are listed here by rank, with their service number and names of each actor in parentheses:
After their ship, the '' Sulaco '', is dispatched to LV-426 , most of the marines are killed during the encounters with the Xenomorphs . It should be noted that although some were slain outright during the combat (Frost, Crowe, Ferro, Gorman, Vasquez, and possibly Drake and Spunkmeyer), others, such as Dietrich, Apone, and apparently Wierzbowski and Hudson, were captured ''alive'' by the aliens and likely served as unwilling hosts for the Facehugger s. The two Marine survivors were written off in the sequel, '' Alien³ ''. Hicks died at the start of this film, and Bishop made a brief cameo appearance but asked Ripley to permanently shut him down, though it is believed he was recovered by the rescue team sent by Weyland-Yutani at the films end. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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