Could a squad of space marines take over a modern first world country?

Single squad, with no air support?

No, probably not.

>>54175495
Depends what sort of support they can get, but I think at minimum you would need a squad of terminators and they would need to lie about their total numbers.

>>54175510
>>54175598
Not that I don't believe you, but what would stop them?
The sheer amount of bullets? Bombs?

>>54175669
Tanks and missiles mostly, if you're talking standard marines. While they are walking tanks, you can't take over a country with only 5 tanks.

Terminators have better odds thanks to the ability to teleport and their insane durability against anything that could be set up as an initial defense. Even they wouldn't want to get in a protracted fight with tanks and aircraft, but that doesn't matter when they can just slaughter everyone at a bunker or airfield and then move on to the next.

>>54175495
A single chaos marine can corrupt entire worlds through intelligent and charismatic actions designed to sway large amounts of the population.

Imperial Space Marines, if they fight a guerrilla war can really fuck up a few nations, but cannot fight an open war of attrition with an entire planet.

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166KB, 890x661px

>>54175495
>can die to lasguns
>A10 strafing run
>GG no RE faggot

>>54175917
>15 minutes minimum to scramble a jet from the word go
>more time on top of that to travel and get the order in the first place
>all to fly to an installation that was under attack and try to pick out a few 8 foot tall dudes in armor who are also experts in stealth out from everything else
>they can also hide in a building

Space marines could land in the middle of times square and you'd never be able to kill them without leveling the city.

>>54175495

Let's begin by stipulating that the marines have infinite ammo. That's so core to the setting that you can't put it aside. With the size of a bolt and a bolter's RoF they'd be out of ammo in seconds, but instead by canon they go on shooting for days/weeks at a time with no resupply. So let the record reflect: infinite ammo.

OK so by Battletech rules, sure. They can blow up anything sent against them, and their power armor is proof against whatever they're hit with except possibly nukes but I wouldn't wager against that.

So they have a big fight, win, and then President Trump formally hands over the keys to the government and the rest of the country meekly goes along with it.

I started with BT because that's how they ALWAYS do it. Well, nearly always, unless an insurgency is a specific plot point. 40k is sometimes like this, sometimes more realistic, sometimes on its own frequency.

So the more realistic point is to say that a squad of marines could probably defeat anything sent against them. It could probably withstand any weapon used on them. But so what? At the end of the day you have ten dudes walking around on foot. Even if you give them a rhino or land raider... you're a zone of destruction a couple miles in diameter at best. The President flies around on Air Force One and the leadership stays mobile. The astartes could DESTROY the country (slowly) by damaging vital physical infrastructure, but that would take forever and destroying something isn't the same as taking it over (aka conquering it).

And how do you administer such a possession? How would the marines even run things? Would they even know if their orders were being obeyed vs being given lip service?

Short of bluffing or going green beret and raising an insurgency or something almost totally non-combat, I'm not seeing how they take over even a small first world country. Maybe Israel just because it's so small geographically.

>>54175495
No. Thats not their job.
Marines don't "conquer" planets, they're an elite taskforce designed for surgical strike missions.
If the Imperium decided "lets conquer america", the marine squad would infiltrate the most important headquarters, logistics and military assets before the imperial guard gets sent in to actually clean up the whole mess and "take over".
The marines leave after they have completed their job.
A squad of marines vs the entire us military in a 1v1 fight= btfo'd marines
A squad of marines carefully sabotaging and crippling key military assets and systems that would help the us defend against the incoming crusade force of imperial guard? The marines have a field day.