539 ASRM

Have New Offshore Raiding Craft

The previous page was: "30 Commando Royal Marines"

539 ASRM; Bristling with guns, the Offshore Raiding Craft smashes to a halt in the water. The green berets of 539 Assault Raiding Squadron Royal Marines, focus grim faced on their targets, they have taken up all-round fire protection positions.

The small boats experts of 539 have welcomed the arrival of a newer model of their offshore raiding craft (ORC)-the somewhat un-inspiringly named 'mid-console varant', but let's call it the 'gunboat' as that sums up its role so much more graphically.

The existing ORCs,-the 'troop carrying varant'-are designed with the console (the bit where you drive the thing) at the back of the craft, with seats for up to eight men in front. Ideal for troop-carrying but not the ideal arrangements of providing 360 degrees of gunfire cover.

The seats can come out, guns can be bolted in, and armour cladding can be attached but structurally the boat remains the same.

30 Commando Royal Marines

Royal Marines of 539 ASRM

Now the Royal Marines of 539 ASRM are being supplied with bespoke riverine gunboats; these are craft dedicated to the core of their being of; giving fire-support to troops landing from amphibious landing craft, in a similar way to the fireships of the past, with a different armament.

The new ORC offers far better protection to the men inside-it boasts 7.62mm ballistic protection; it has thermal and image intensifiers in advance of it's troop carrying fore-runners. It has greatly improved visibility for the men at the console.

The craft is portable it can be carried on a road trailer, put into the back of Hercules aircraft, or Slung under Chinook helicopters. It is well suited to the riverine environments in which they patrol and operate.

Heavy machine guns

It runs with a crew of seven: two coxswains, two gunners on the forward General Purpose Machine Guns, with a port and starboard .5 heavy machine guns and another 7.62 GPMG in the middle controlling all of the fire.

In these new ORCs, the console sits in the middle, allowing the gunners to be arrayed to cover every angle; this gunboat lives up to that title, carrying heavy machine guns, grenade machine guns and GPMGs.

Captain Matt Pinckney, Officer Commanding Raiding Troop 539 ASRM, explained: "This weapons system will always be firing. There is never a time where from the angle of the craft we will be unable to fire. What you don't want in a fire-fight is nobody firing because then obviously the enemy will be able to get the upper-hand. It definitely gets the job done. And as is often required by the Royal Marines, it is versatile enough to do other jobs too."

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Changes within 539 ASRM

Captain Pinckney admits: "The United States have bespoke riverine craft, they don't have craft that tries to do everything."

"We are as likely to come from thirty-miles off-shore; or to be living in the craft off Norway as we are to be upriver in Iraq or somewhere similar."

Changes within 539 have seen the steady growth of the beach recce role of the Squadron Reconnaissance Unit become integrated within the Brigade Reconnaissance Force.

The next Link below will be: "Amphibious Operations"

539-ASRM Amphibious Operations

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