The colonial marines are replaced by post-war UNSC Marines

[TheFeniX]

Which makes me want to ask: what would be a reasonable force given the mission parameters?

I'm not a military guy, but they should always have revolving crews so the ship is manned at all times (like in the snooze-fest Pandorum, or, you know, reality) or else you could easily end up in a situation like what happened in Pitch Black: you aren't waking up until shit has already hit the fan. People are groggy after Aliens cryo-sleep, that's not good either.

Just in infantry alone, I would assume they'd need (at the least) 4 times the crew they had. There's 300 people there. Sure, maybe there's an accident. But it's also possible there's been an uprising or wave of violence. Point is: they don't know (only Burke does and he ain't spilling the beans) and any reinforcements are months out. I would also assume their ship and the colony costs a lot more than a couple dozen more grunts being paid if nothing comes of it.

To cover maintenance shifts on a ship that big.... a lot more than they had, which was 0. I'm sure anyone here who served on a military ship could give way more info than I could on the exact logistics required to run a ship of that size and be ready when shit hits the fan. Infantry men don't shoot ship guns, pilot ships, fix engines, or any of that shit. They don't know how, it's not their job. Just from some cursory googling: Nimitz-class carriers could take up to 5,000 people. Obviously, with oxygen being at a premium, I doubt SOP is to take everyone they can fit. But 500 people running a ship that big wouldn't be a stretch.

That's kind of the problem when you take an aircraft carrier to pickup some stranded co-eds who fell off their jet-ski: no matter the parameters of the mission, your choice of ride kind of dictates a lot of what you're dragging along with you.

They had, what, one pilot and one-copilot? (except Ripley). And both of them ended up on the planet? Hell, they ALL ended up on the planet? That's ballsy. Stupid, but ballsy.

[Elheru Aran]

Which makes me want to ask: what would be a reasonable force given the mission parameters?

At least company strength, with a platoon(perhaps two) to investigate the colony proper, while the rest set up a base camp outside the colony, and maintain an alert force with the remaining maneuver platoons, just in case the ones sent into the colony encounter more than they can handle.

And, the Sulaco in orbit, with a crew awakened and at the wheel, ready to nuke the damn colony from orbit. Just to be sure.

It sounds good... but that would be pricey.

They thought it was the equivalent of a cop driving by someone's house and rattling the doorknob. You don't send a whole company to do that job. Admittedly the Sulaco could certainly have carried more (as far as I know), they just didn't send more because they were being deliberately misled by W-Y.

[The Romulan Republic]

Makes one wonder why they sent that aircraft carrier-sized ship, then.

Although it may be that that's simply how big you have to build a ship for it to have FTL capability in that setting (just guessing). In which case, an aircraft carrier may be the wrong analogy.

Look at real world space craft. Look at the Saturn 5. It was massive, with only three crew and a tiny crew capsule. Most of that was engines.

Of course, a Saturn 5 was only used once, and any maintenance to the engines would be done on the ground.

In any case, it doesn't excuse the failure to have anyone on the ship just in case, or the absence of more medical personnel on what they knew at least could be a rescue mission with casualties.

Edit: Actually, the first film corroborates that for this setting, its normal for a huge space ship to have a tiny crew. Their were what, half a dozen people on the Nostromo? Granted, they actually kept people on the ship at all times.

[NecronLord]

The Sulaco was a converted civilian craft, according to the designer. There are large cargo bays on the model.

[Crazedwraith]

The Sulaco was a converted civilian craft, according to the designer. There are large cargo bays on the model.

This is explains the lack of crew how exactly?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Makes one wonder why they sent that aircraft carrier-sized ship, then.

Although it may be that that's simply how big you have to build a ship for it to have FTL capability in that setting (just guessing). In which case, an aircraft carrier may be the wrong analogy.

Look at real world space craft. Look at the Saturn 5. It was massive, with only three crew and a tiny crew capsule. Most of that was engines.

Of course, a Saturn 5 was only used once, and any maintenance to the engines would be done on the ground.

In any case, it doesn't excuse the failure to have anyone on the ship just in case, or the absence of more medical personnel on what they knew at least could be a rescue mission with casualties.

Edit: Actually, the first film corroborates that for this setting, its normal for a huge space ship to have a tiny crew. Their were what, half a dozen people on the Nostromo? Granted, they actually kept people on the ship at all times.

Nostromo was a civilian freighter, though. Freight lines tend to crew their ships as minimally as possible, as to be able to carry more cargo. The ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald, for example, was a 26,000 dwt Lake boat with only a crew of 29.

Military ships have larger crews, so they can schedule watches round the clock, and have more hands available for damage control.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's all reasonable, but it does show that in this setting, a very small number of people are considered sufficient to operate and maintain a giant ship, so it relates to the crew/maintainance issues being discussed.

Edit: And as to the additional damage control needs of a warship, I think we can safely say that their was no real risk of the Sulaco getting into a fight with another starship, or coming under fire in any way, unless the government in Aliens is at war with some space faring force we don't know about or the colony and surface to space weaponry we don't know about.

[TheFeniX]

Nostromo was a civilian freighter, though. Freight lines tend to crew their ships as minimally as possible, as to be able to carry more cargo. The ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald, for example, was a 26,000 dwt Lake boat with only a crew of 29.

Still not the size of the Nostromo which had all of 0 visible actual crew. And you can get away with a limited crew when you're surrounded on all sides by civilization: out in deep space with help weeks away, you cannot afford that.

Even with their limited crew, not leaving one person on the Nostromo was suicidal. You could easily have a number of sitatuations come up, without the intervention of aliens, that could make you unable to get off planet and/or redock with the ship.

[Batman]

Err-the Nostromo was the freighter from Alien, which was never left uncrewed. You're thinking of the Sulaco from Aliens.

[Khaat]

On keeping with USASF and USCMC requirements for safety and the trend towards the reduction of crew workloads, the operation of the USS Sulaco and her Conestoga Class sister ships is fully automated. ... This effectively permits the vessel to pilot itself and fight space battles without the assistance of a crew, who might be incapacitated or in hypersleep. A starship's central processor is intelligent enough to make informed decisions regarding navigation, rules of engagement, pursuit and escape - though these decisions may be overridden at any time by the vessel's commanding officer.

Dunno if you put much stock in the source, but that makes the squad under Gorman effectively cargo for a milk-run.

If Ripley's right (and Burke has reason to believe she is), Burke gets to keep what he finds. If she's wrong (and it's "just a downed transmitter"), no harm, no foul.

[Sea Skimmer]

A modern ship crew simply cannot fix many systems on board, they exist mainly for preventive maintenance and minor parts replacement. Engine throws a crap and you need a shipyard for that.

The idea of a warship in which a crew could do no useful maintenance function isn't that unreasonable if it were built with redundancy for that purpose in mind; but it'd have precious little ability to absorb damage either as a result. Which might really not matter in a battle using nuclear weapons. To say it must have a crew makes some big assumptions on the reliability and nature of its systems. Look at the size of the air plant vs the number of people assigned to maintain it! Not bloody many vs HUGE.

Humans also cause problems. Look at the Taiwanese airliner that crashed recently because the crew killed power to the wrong engine after one failed. A universe with androids and orbit-surface-return with no refueling drop ships might not find an automated ship too challenging.

[Sidewinder]

The Sulaco was a converted civilian craft, according to the designer. There are large cargo bays on the model.

No, it was a purpose-built warship that WOULD BE converted into a civilian craft AFTER DECOMMISSIONING. The Colonial Marines Technical Manual states this was to occur in five years.

[PREDATOR490]

At minimum, I would have expected at least double the amount of people in Aliens. The entire group manages to fit comfortably in a single APC and Dropship and the size of the Suluco is beyond excessive for 10 people. The ship carries nukes, nerve agents and what should end up being a very large amount of logistical support equipment.

Even if you believed the mission was going to be a 'broken'' transmitter - Sending that much firepower sounds vastly expensive and counter-productive to WY / Burke's objectives. Burke was clearly trying to cover his ass and a greedy shit but I find it unbelievable he can somehow pull strings to send a ship armed like that but crewed with 10 people.

Regardless, 20 marines IS double the amount of people that were sent in Aliens. The xenomorphs should lose, the only variation is what the UNSC brings to the table. Even 20 Colonial Marines commanded by Gorman should have done better simply because the APC will not fit that many. One team goes via APC to the hive and gets ambushed, the other team should be sitting fine and armed because they did not strip their weapons.

[Archinist]

Regardless, 20 marines IS double the amount of people that were sent in Aliens. The xenomorphs should lose, the only variation is what the UNSC brings to the table. Even 20 Colonial Marines commanded by Gorman should have done better simply because the APC will not fit that many. One team goes via APC to the hive and gets ambushed, the other team should be sitting fine and armed because they did not strip their weapons.

Why would one team still get ambushed when going to the hive? They have motion sensors in their helmets, unlike the colonials, and they also have a walking tank with an energy shield and two gunships with dropship capability. The hive team would not get ambushed, because they will detect the aliens coming in before they are attacked.

[TheFeniX]

On keeping with USASF and USCMC requirements for safety and the trend towards the reduction of crew workloads, the operation of the USS Sulaco and her Conestoga Class sister ships is fully automated. ... This effectively permits the vessel to pilot itself and fight space battles without the assistance of a crew, who might be incapacitated or in hypersleep. A starship's central processor is intelligent enough to make informed decisions regarding navigation, rules of engagement, pursuit and escape - though these decisions may be overridden at any time by the vessel's commanding officer.

What kind of sensors does the Sulaco have? If it has this smart AI, why wouldn't it be tracking the APC and Dropship, determine they've been destroyed, and do something?

The "2 weeks" comment, does this change that? Was that until the Colonial Military sent another ship to check on them or until the AI on the Sulaco did something besides singing Daisy Bell?

Err-the Nostromo was the freighter from Alien, which was never left uncrewed. You're thinking of the Sulaco from Aliens.

Stupid Freud, slipping me up. Still, no matter how much automation you have or fancy AIs (aside from actual humanoid AI, capable of performing physical labor), there's no substitute for having (at least) a human around to also keep an eye on things.

[Khaat]

Well, right there in that text, the ship is concerned with "navigation, rules of engagement, pursuit and escape". She doesn't likely have the wherewithal to "butt-in" to the section's infantry mission. This would follow, in that Bishop didn't call up the ship, "could you pretty please do something for us?"

The 17 days would be: overdue check-in through comms to "local" USCM control, plus flight time for rescue crew/ship. At the very least, the Sulaco is valuable, the Marines are just cargo (much like the company inquiry was concerned with the value of the Nostromo and cargo, but not so much the six dead people.)

[PREDATOR490]

Regardless, 20 marines IS double the amount of people that were sent in Aliens. The xenomorphs should lose, the only variation is what the UNSC brings to the table. Even 20 Colonial Marines commanded by Gorman should have done better simply because the APC will not fit that many. One team goes via APC to the hive and gets ambushed, the other team should be sitting fine and armed because they did not strip their weapons.

Why would one team still get ambushed when going to the hive? They have motion sensors in their helmets, unlike the colonials, and they also have a walking tank with an energy shield and two gunships with dropship capability. The hive team would not get ambushed, because they will detect the aliens coming in before they are attacked.

The xenos did not move until the team were already deep in the hive. Unless the motion sensors are able to detect Xenos when stationary, the ambush can only be prevented if the marines took proper precautions.

Walking tank - I do not see that being much use inside a tight facility and taking it into the processor is going to be a major no-no.
Gunships - Unless the marines are going to start hosing the facility then the gunships cannot do anything. Even more so when hosing the facility could cause the place to explode.

[Knife]

I think the group of Marines were supposed to be a 'platoon' level unit. A buttar bar, a SNCO, a NCO, and a jumble of grunts. IIRC, be a month or so since I watched it (Yeah top 10 favorite movie) it broke down into two squads. Not what I'd call a typical platoon, but a bare bones one with the functioning parts. Not sure if it's more of a detachment than a platoon though. Their squads are more like fire teams. I'm used to 13 man squads ( three 4 man teams) but they have a four man squad with one squad leader. So the whole detachment is like a squad, but a squad with a Lt and SNCO on top of the regular NCO leaders.

That said, yeah a ridiculous amount of plot had to happen to make them gimped enough to make the Alien's a threat especially considering Hudson's little rant about their gear right before the drop...

Private Hudson: I'm ready, man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State of the badass art! You do not wanna fuck with me. Check it out! Hey Ripley, don't worry. Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. Vwap! Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks...

Anyway, I don't think it's a tech or tactic thing and more of a plot convinces thing. You can put anyone on LV 214 with ranged weapons and combined arms tactics and have to gimp them something aweful to make them NOT a match for the Aliens.

[Archinist]

Walking tank - I do not see that being much use inside a tight facility and taking it into the processor is going to be a major no-no.
Gunships - Unless the marines are going to start hosing the facility then the gunships cannot do anything. Even more so when hosing the facility could cause the place to explode.

So they lure the aliens outside and blast away. Either way, there is literally zero possible way for the Mantis to be destroyed, unless the marines do something very silly or the pilot gets out and wanders around.

[Simon_Jester]

The Sulaco was a converted civilian craft, according to the designer. There are large cargo bays on the model.

This is explains the lack of crew how exactly?

Modern cargo ships often have comically small crews for their tonnage, too. This is a natural consequence once you resign yourself to the fact that the ship's engines and other heavy machinery are too delicate for the crew to perform major repairs on while underway, and once you develop good monitoring systems so that a complex machine can be overseen by a few people operating from a single control center.

Large warship crews mostly spend their time running around operating systems with many individual components that have to be kept track of, and which are not designed to be automatically controlled from one place. They also do at least preventative maintenance, which consists largely of running diagnostics and making sure everything is working correctly. And one of the reasons for doing this, even when it is not strictly necessary, is because warships are expected to take battle casualties and to need large numbers of warm bodies present for damage control or other unforeseen tasks.

In a starship... If the hyperdrive and other key systems cannot be realistically worked on in flight, then this monitoring role may well fall to one or two technicians who watch automated systems and whose real job consists of making sure the IT connections to the automated systems don't break down.

A ship like the Enterprise from Star Trek needs a large crew, precisely because Geordi/Scotty/whoever actually DOES have the capability to tear the engines apart and perform major repairs on them. If this were not a likely eventuality in the context of the Enterprise's mission, there would be little need for such a large crew in engineering, and so on.

[Sea Skimmer]

Right now big merchies are sailing around with only three people actually on duty at times! Which is kind of scary since they still badly need crews. Guy at the helm, someone in command both on the bridge, and one guy watching engine status displays. Automating that together isn't a huge leap, as far as automation goes, the US navy is now attempting it for a unmanned submarine chaser.

Events of Alien should be considered. The manned Nostromo was lost with all hands for over 50 years, several generations of people and technology. That might have been the only major ship loss for a long time, I mean I'd kind of hope so by the 25th century or whatever as earth does not appear to face a major space threat. Policing it's own people more like it.

While the company covered up the fact that it ordered the Nostromo to divert to a planet, the loss of ship and crew and that huge refinery it was hauling are going to be known. If a fault in the ship could be ruled out, they clearly already had a very advanced ship, then crew error would naturally be the prime suspect. And you probably just wouldn't get the finest crews either, considering how lame the duty would be long term, the Alien crew was clearly not in love with the job.

This probably became a political factor in shipping regulations, its possible manned crews were formally deemphasized whenever possible as a result. The company probably favored fully automatic shipping at an early point, because it only improves the companies ability to explore deep space secretly long term. They'd seldom need large numbers of troops.

If you want a reasonable crew it's really going to be at least 25 people to maintain a duty watch long term, and that's a lot of extra people compared to delivering single squads or platoons of Marines. The argument could well be made that at that point it'd be silly to risk a crew on missions. Lack of obvious threats should would breed complacency, if humanity has been in the stars a couple centuries with no real enemies found it might really be taken as the level of joke the Marines make doing the drop.

Sulaco does seem like she might be an armed merchant from the model, the way her guns are kinda poorly mounted and such, though the all bow antenna farm is neat. Her dropship bays and hypersleep pods could deliver cargo and workers as well as armored vehicles and Marines.

[Elheru Aran]

Cargo ships almost always historically have had low crew numbers compared to military craft; it would be extremely unusual for it to go the other way. That's one reason piracy still (sorta) works, it's easy enough for them to overwhelm a cargo ship crew with a few boats full of malnourished AK-toting Somalis or Indonesians.

Put in that light, I'm thinking 'bug hunts' are likely... well pretty much wildlife extermination. Some colony makes a settlement on Random Planet B, critters from the jungle eat a few of them, they phone in a request for help, and Weyland-Yutani drops a few Marines on their base to clean up.

[Sea Skimmer]

That seems likely. Feral earth animals even might become a problem on habitable worlds even if earth hasn't found major aliens yet, or not dangerous ones at least. I'm thinking scenario like wild eurasian gene spliced superhogs unleashed upon planet potato kind of scenario. 50 hogs become 500,000 hogs.

I kind of figure the main point of the colonial marines is to make sure little settlements that might not even have real police can't just up and say, declare independence. The heavier weapons would probably only come into play against earth itself and maybe a few larger colonies that actually have city scale populations. Of course we have no idea how many earth governments are in space even.

[MKSheppard]

That seems likely. Feral earth animals even might become a problem on habitable worlds even if earth hasn't found major aliens yet, or not dangerous ones at least. I'm thinking scenario like wild eurasian gene spliced superhogs unleashed upon planet potato kind of scenario. 50 hogs become 500,000 hogs..

Rabbits. US Colonial Marines Technical Manual mentions rabbits getting loose on any world humans colonize; they breed too fast for the local predators to keep them in check.

[MKSheppard]

The Sulaco was a converted civilian craft, according to the designer.

Sulaco is a Conestoga class assault transport, due to be retired along with her sisters in about a decade.