Forum:The 405 Marines

If you play the Halo 2 Trailer, you will notice that SgtMaj Johnson doesn't say what type of unit the 405th is. I believe it is not a division, but a unit about a third of that size, a regiment. Cpl. Perez says he is a member of A Company, and most Marines will not say they are part of, for exanple, A company of the First Division, as there may be more than one A company in that division. They would say they were a part of A company, fifth regiment. This makes much more sense, as Marines generally deploy as battalions and regiments and not full divisions. Plus, if the UNSC had over 400 divisions, that would be over 1 million personnel in the Marine Corps alone, not counting the Navy and possible Army. The UNSC would have no need for this number of personnel, at least not before the Covenant War. The UNSC was fighting pirates and not division size armies. Despite the billions of people in the human race, modern technology and warfare would not require 400 divisions. I believe there are about 200 Marine divisions at most. Unless- and this is quite possible- the UNSC Army that we have heard so little about is being integrated as part of the Marine Corps. This could easily create 400 divisions. In fact, as the number of Marines dwindle, the UNSC may need more Marines. So instead of having Army soldiers sitting on their hands on garrison duty, the UNSC has made those soldiers into Marines. This is the only likely reason for over 400 Marine Divisions existing. If the Army hasn't been integrated into the Marines, then there are probably less than 1 million Marines. The "405th out of Diego Garcia" is probably a regiment.

Submitted by Big Bad Wolf


 * Not necessarily. The point that the 405th's size was never stated is true, but the info about the divisions is false. US Marines are based in Divisions, which are subdivided into Regiments and Battalions. The US Army is also based on Divisions but is divided into larger Brigade units.


 * Also, Divisions are not necessarily numbered in chronological sense. That order changes. The number doesn't necessarily mean there are currently 405 active divisions. Divisions become active and inactive as time goes on. The US Army currently has 10 active divisions, yet the 25th Mountain Division is one of them. In fact the US has only ever had 2 airborne divisions, but they are numbered the 82nd and 101st.


 * As to the number of marines, they probably do number far over 1 million because:


 * 1) 1 million soldiers is not a big number. the US Army had over 1 million military in World War II, and they still barely won. And that was just on one world. The UNSC has well over 200.
 * 2) The UNSC has been at war with the Covenant for almost 30 years, they've had time to expand.
 * 3) As you can see from the Halo Games, the UNSC is still not near enough along technology wise to reduce the number of needed soldiers by any significant amount.
 * -- ED ( talk )(shockfront) 22:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * So a million is tiny these days. 1 googol (10100) and a Googolpex ($$10^{\,\!10^{100}}$$)
 * It has been tiny for a long time. During WWII, the Soviet army had over 300 active divisions (5 million men) in their military at the time Germany betrayed them, and they still barely fended the enemy off. And once again, that war was on one planet, not 200+ -- ED ( talk )(shockfront) 02:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)