The Deployable Operations Group
The Deployable Operations Group is the World Union for Space Policy’s boarding and orbital landing force. Embarked aboard Space Patrol Service ships, the Deployable Operations Group is formally subordinate to the Patrol, but in practice is a co-equal service. The Deployable Operations Group today numbers 66,000 operators, organised into three divisions, and has earned a reputation for high physical fitness standards, gruelling training, and hard fighting.
The Deployable Operations Group traces its origin to the Patrol Boarding Force, a largely ad hoc collection of cross-trained spacers which was established in 2105 in the face of increasingly-violent encounters with smugglers and claim-jumpers in the Asteroid Belt. These foreshadowed the eruption of the Pirate Crisis the following year, in which the Space Patrol Service was forced to transition from a lightly-armed police service to a de facto military. As part of this, the Patrol Boarding Force grew significantly, and quickly acquired its own separate identity as the demands of boarding actions and assaults on defended asteroid hideouts became increasingly-complex and casualty-intensive. The Deployable Operations Group was formally established in 2108 as a dedicated, special operations capable force focused on orbital assaults. Since then, its forces have expanded from small teams to large, formed units, and it is today capable of projecting a complete divisional group of up to ten thousand operators virtually anywhere in the colonised Solar System.
Organisation of the Deployable Operations Group
The Deployable Operations Group is led by the Commandant, currently General Sabrina Hiott, who sits on the Joint Staff alongside the Chief of Patrol Operations. The Commandant is advised by the Sergeant Major of the Deployable Operations Group, the service’s most senior non-commissioned officer. Like the Space Patrol Service, the Deployable Operations Group is organisationally divided into administrative and operational commands: Combat Command, Support Command, Service Command, and Installations Command are responsible for recruiting, training, and equipping operators. Operationally, the group’s three divisions rotate every two years between the Orbital Landing Force, the Patrol Operations Force, and the Operational Security Group. The Orbital Landing Force is the World Union’s main offensive formation, and since 2121 has been led by a force of operators deployed aboard the Patrol’s Orbital Landing Group, able to seize a heavily-defended target from space. The Patrol Operations Force consists of Operations Detachments (OPSDETs) aboard Patrol ships for security and boarding. The Operational Security Group provides surface security detachments for World Union installations on Earth and on the World Union’s colonies.
The Deployable Operations Group’s emblem is the Rifles, Globe, and Delta, which was adopted in 2108 and represents its role as a ship-deployed, surface fighting force. The Rifles, Globe, and Delta replaced the original Patrol Boarding Force emblem of a delta surmounting two crossed rifles with eight stars above, which in turn replaced a number of ad hoc morale patches that were considered too inappropriate or bloodthirsty for official recognition. In recognition of the Patrol Boarding Force’s heritage, the rifles-and-delta emblem is still used on buttons of Deployable Operations Group dress uniforms.