Before we go anywhere if you dont know anything about real world tactics, take a look at [url="http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/EIB/EIB_Related_Battle_Drills/index.shtml"]Battle Drills[/url].

In the 1,000 Marine Myth there is an argument raging about whether or not Scouts are indeed Marines and there role as a Reconnaissance Force. I believe that Scouts are less recon focused, and indeed more focused on learning all types of warfare. A scout would learn every conceivable battle drill, strategy, and operation from the phalanx and double envelopment to clearing rooms and the intricacies of successfully executing an airborne operation. They spend all their time in training becoming masters of conventional warfare and executing conventional missions on the ground, like the Imperial Guard to an extent.

I use the term [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_warfare"]conventional warfare[/url] to show that a Space Marine Scout for all intents and purposes is simply a highly trained, expert infantryman. The highest level of the non-special forces designations in the Imperium. A scout is better equipped, more motivated, and better trained (mentally and physically) than any other Imperial trooper (this does not include the specialists or those tampered with).

A Space Marine IS [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_warfare"]unconventional warfare[/url]. For those who wont click the link:
Unconventional warfare is an attempt to achieve military victory through acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing conflict.
A Space Marine is fear, to unleash him upon the enemy is to unleash the enemies darkest nightmares. Every citizen in the Imperium fears and loves the angels of the Emperor and whenever they become traitors, the fiery contrails from they sky is the VERY last thing they wanted to see.

But, we know the psychological effect of the Space Marines, but what about their tactics? What makes them so scary?


First, we need to look at what makes a Space Marine so effective. He is clad in the best armor available, armor so complex it is a vehicle and weapon in its own right. He is gifted with the most damage producing standard infantry weapon available in the Imperium. His mind is as sharp as a razors edge, a regular marine is able to grasp strategy on the same level as any Imperial Guard commander. But what makes him so deadly?

It is the fact he can transcend traditional tactics. To clear a room you need a door or an opening right? What if the door has no opening? In the Space Wolves Short Story in Tales of Heresy, the Space Wolves used breaching charges and the weight of their armor to keep up the momentum of the attack, blowing into room after room, totally circumventing the Dark Eldar defenses arranged to fight warriors coming through a door or portal. One may argue that normal IG and so on can do the same, and I would say you are right, but for Space Marines it takes less effort. A Guardsmen cannot punch through the wall and rip it down, a Sororitas cannot run straight through solid reinforced cinderblock/ferrocrete without being pinned in the rubble like an Astartes. And that is just one example.

A Space Marine's armor allows him to ignore most things a guardsmen must take account for. Like small arms fire. If assaulting a fixed position a marine can simply sprint at it outside the arc of fire of the weapon. A Space Marine is fast enough that he could easily reach the position before the crew has rotated, and if the weapon is of sufficient calibre, it really wont matter if the turn fast enough . Obviously this is all dependent on the scenario and terrain and the list goes on, but my point is made. A Space Marine doesn't have to do buddy team rushes, or search for cover. He IS his own cover. He doesn't need concealment, he doesn't need camo, because if he see you, you are dead.

This of course does not mean a Space Marine is invulnerable, quite the opposite. A Space Marine can essential turn the battlefield into something of an obstacle course. His goal isn't to secure an objective, in a traditional sense, it is to destroy all the enemy. THEN secure whatever you were looking for. A Space Marine typically isn't employed to do standard operations. He is a Juggernaught, an enemy eraser. Where you have enemies, he removes them. Where you need things reinforced, send in the guard.

The best way to deal with a Space Marine is Ordnance. His armor makes him powerful, so you take away that advantage. Bolters, Heavy Bolters, Missile, Plasma, Cannons, Lascannons, Sharp Talons, bio-acid, and all make nice power armor crackers. In a universe as deadly as 40K power armor is hardly god mode, but in a basic infantry match up, it is unmatched.

Now add in 9 more Space Marines. If one space marine is an enemy eraser, a single squad is capable of devastation on a whole new level. When references are made to Space Marines taking over whole worlds with single battle companies, it isn't a stretch to see how they do it. They wage [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War"]Total War[/url], population centers are bombarded from orbit, industrial centers are ruined, crops burned, and God help those poor designated military targets. While the population centers feel the cold and impersonal wrath of the Emperor (which happens to be quite warm), the military targets get a special touch. The Space Marines go down, and PERSONALLY show the traitors/rebels/orks the error of their ways. Because nothing teaches better than being shown just what's wrong with what your doing .

The tactics of a Space Marine are less grounded in reality, and instead based upon fear and the enemy defeating itself mentally. In battle a Space Marine is really just an exterminator, battle drills are one of the many ways a space marine can choose to kill his enemy*. He just kills, that is all he does. He is good for NOTHING else. Even Marneus Calgar, ruler of the most prosperous worlds in the entire Imperium is nothing more than an exterminator. Without war space marines are nothing.




*When Fighting against traitor marines, real world tactics would have to be adopted, and the space marine would have to stop 'playing around'. A Chaos Marine effectively negates anything a Space Marine brings to the table, and will often be better than a regular marine in most everything, due to his long and tough life in the EoT.






Some of this is for one of the articles I am currently working on, but I sincerely hope this sparks some meaningful and fierce debate over how space marines would actually fight.