MT (in one of the Journals) has a picture sequence of the process of donning battle dress. It's about as onerous and entering a space suit nowadays (maybe a bit faster, but it is a team event, although you could automate it with some bots). I doubt this is shipboard dress for most marines NOT expecting to be in the middle of a battle. I think that would be some sort of sleeve with some armour properties, some LBE, some inherent life support (and with the ability to snap on more, ditto with armour), and some sort of light weaponry - likely laser rifles in case of zero-G. If they were ready for a battle, yes, the Marines are broken out with full battle rattle - battle dress or combat armour, FGs and PGs, etc. But for just day to day, no.

If you get multiple 20 minute high guard turns, breaking out the Marines in full kit is possible, maybe in 1 turn on a good day, 2 on a bad.

But if your foe jumps in on you or ambushes you in some unexpected place, your kit is your usual duty vacc suit/sleeve and whatever weapons are available without heading to the main armouries (sidearms or rifles from individual hull section arming stations). Some portion of the Marine unit would forgo reporting directly to stations so that it could get in full battle rattle and be the fast response team.

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 3:24 PM Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:


On 30May2020 0715, Kelly St. Clair wrote:
> On 5/28/2020 9:44 AM, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
>> Well, it's 'battle dress' in that some wag hung that emotive title on
>> 'powered exoskeleton with armour'. It is technically true (much like
>> a set of fatigues is battle dress) but it's also just dramatic
>> sounding. The designers may never have called it that but the
>> marketers would.
>
> I wonder to what extent this is language and/or cultural - remember,
> Galanglic is not 20th/21st century English, it has even more <s>stolen
> vocabulary</s> loanwords, etc.  Maybe that's what the Vilani-derived
> phrase most literally translates as; meanwhile, the Sollies call it
> "power armo(u)r", as they have since long before it was actually
> invented/made practical.
>
> Alternatively, per your mention of marketing: could be that "battle
> dress" is trademarkable where "power armor" is not. (This, of course,
> works on a meta level as well. :p )
>
I've always thought that the Imperial Marines call it 'battle dress' to
emphasise that it's their normal combat armour. It's not some special
kit, but what Marines wear to the party. And if that's what the Marines
call it, well everyone else is going to as well. Okay, there'll be some
Army guys somewhere who will insist that it's proper name is [insert
some over-long descriptive name here], but nobody not below them in the
chain of command will care what they think.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>

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