A boarding party was an armed detachment assembled to board an enemy starship in a hostile attack known as a boarding action.
History[]
The opposing crew of an enemy vessel might try to board an opponent's ship, damage that ship's key systems, or capture her outright, just as in the ancient Age of Sail. A transporter beam was usually employed in boarding actions, but less often, a breaching pod could physically penetrate the hull, or a shuttlecraft could be deployed against an enemy shuttlebay or docking port.
Aside from their officers and enlisted crew, numerous starships carried marines, who guarded key systems during ship-to-ship combat, becoming particularly vigilant after battle stations were sounded, signaling heightened combat alerts. Troop numbers could be depleted through casualties.
A vessel's commander had to be mindful of the relative numbers of the opposing ship's marines, against their own number of marines, if attempting a boarding action in combat, lest they leave themselves depleted of defenders. However even undefended ships contained automated security systems. Most successful actions were generally conducted by larger vessels against starships of a lower weight class. (TOS video games: Starfleet Command, Starfleet Command II: Empires at War, Klingon Academy)
External link[]
- Boarding party article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.