Imperial Armed Forces

## The Imperial Army

The Imperial Army of the Eternal Empire is at it's core a force of shock and awe, drawing on experiences learned from Earth and bringing the old-timey blitzkrieg style of land warfare into the modern era.

### **Overview**

   The Imperial Army is centered around the use of a variety of infantries supported by air and mech spearheads; everything in the army is built to service the infantry in their objectives.

The Empire draws upon its vast manpower to create large armies of men and women to fight against xeno threat, the industrial might and expanse of the Empire affording every one of their innumerable soldiers a decent outfitting of equipment; the Imperial Army is not know for the quality of its armies, but at the same time it cannot be said that they are particularly poor ether.

By speed and shock not often expected from a largely infantry based army the Imperial Army overcomes its foes, if one army fails then another takes its place and they will hit harder and faster until the enemy breaks; once the Imperial Army breaks through they don't stop, pouring men and machine into the breaches until the day is won.

## **Hierarchy, Rank & Army Structure**

The organization of the 'Rank & File' within the military is a remodeled version of the former 'British Empire' of Earth.

The high ranks within this institution are, like many other aspects of Eternal high society, mostly comprised of men and women from Eternal Noble classes; while many are noble however they are not entirely without members who rose through ranks by merit, and the nobles themselves are not entirely incompetent.

* **The Empress:** *The Eternal Empress commands all.*
* **The 'Lord' Regent:** *The Eternal Empress cannot do it alone.*
* **Field Marshal:** Field Marshal has been the highest rank of the Imperial Army since its first conception in 1736, the pre-exodus era, and remains a prestigious position. Contrary to the Sovereign Armada there can be more than one person to hold this rank. This is because the army is a much larger organisation than the Armada as the Armada consists of less than 1000 warships whilst a single army has more than thrice that number of tanks alone.

A Field Marshall is given a region of space from which he or she musters forces and then colludes with the other Field Marshalls to coordinate war efforts (very much alike the Byzantine Themata system); however, due to the absolute dependence on the Armada to do literally anything, the Field Marshalls rarely influence conquest strategies than as anything more than advisers to the Lord Admiral.

* **Marshal:** When the time to invade comes a single man or woman is pronounced 'Marshall of the planet'. The person assigned the task of conquering the planet is given the 'Mark of conquest'. This Marshall commands the entire invasion from the bridge of HMS Overlord, a vessel built for commanders to coordinate troops.
* **General:** There are usually between 5 to 12 generals under a Marshall's command, depending on the size of the planet under conquest, these Generals share command of the Imperial Army assigned to the planet (Generals do not command their own armies as the Imperial Army is considered one single force, commanded by one leader, the Empress). It might seem like a flaw to divide command but these generals are often from the same family or allied ones; they all equally share the glory or shame of their actions and so work together rather than apart.   Here is where the greatest shift occurs. The military seems to have shed a lot of ranks as a.i has slowly come to perform many logistic duties; Major Generals, Brigadier Generals, Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels have gone in favour of simple 'Clerks' who manage the movements and logistics of the army.

* **Commander:** Responsible for managing a section of frontlines and macro strategy
* **Captain:** The first rank that begins to appear amongst the soldiers; these soldiers are often found in mechs or tanks, firing upon the battlefield and coordinating infantry.
* **1st & 2nd Lieutenant:** These people keep the ranks of infantry in line and ensure discipline is maintained across the battlefield
* **Lower Ranks:** An ensemble of ranks and titles that are of little notice.

## Imperial Armed Forces

### **Army Branches**

* **HM Armed Forces:** The main branch of the Imperial army, encompassing the land forces of the Empire, the HM Armed Forces mainly include; infantry, tanks, mechs and artillery. The army as a whole is drilled and outfitted to make the best use of Blitzkrieg stratagems and tactics.
* **HM Royal Talons:** The air force; this branch includes the expected vessels, from fighters to bombers and troop transports.

* **HM Royal Navy:** As expected, this is the navy of the Imperial Army. Being ocean bound you might think they are usually confined to only operating on occupied planets, as they take time to build. But the navy is actually brought in from the Sovereign Armada using massive transport ships or via special engines that are attached to maritime vessels. Once in the ocean they serve as massive artillery platforms with astonishing range.

### **Recruitment**

The Eternal Empire maintains a standing army of professional soldiers, housing and services are provided for them on-site (wherever that happens to be). In peacetime the Imperial Army usually relies on voluntary service periods and throughout history have rarely needed to change this; army careers are respected, culturally adored and a financially sound life. Soldiers are not especially well paid but the benefits of service include heavy subsidization of almost every service needed (Free housing, meals, healthcare etc etc).

In wartime the Eternal Empire has been known to often dip into conscription though, conscription first includes the reserves; this reserve being made up of people who did not want to actively serve in the military but volunteered to be the first people to conscript if the need arose, after this reserve was run dry the Empire would fill their ranks with citizens from heavily urbanized areas where most workers were not vital components of industry (shopworkers, clerks, accountants).

## **Stratagem, Doctrine & Tactics**

#### The Empire practices the subtle art of hitting the foe with as much as can possibly brought to bear in as short amount of time possible, the Imperial Army moves quickly and undauntingly towards the enemy and assaults the enemy on as short a front as needed.

With numbers and the might of the Empire's industry behind them no position or bastion can hope to endure; instead the Imperial Army operates on the assumption that it is not a matter of **"if"** the enemy breaks but **"when"** the enemy breaks, and once they do there are fresh divisions ready to pour into the opening.

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#### Stratagem - Our home away from home

It was mentioned earlier that the army is trained in construction and farming, well this is essential to conquest. For an invading force to establish supply bases and forward operating bases is not an ancient technique discovered only recently, however the Empire takes this norm and ramps it up to eleven.

Normal bases of supply for any other nation become hubs of logistical efficiency, with depots of trucks and materials in constant use and expansion and entire landing grounds for orbital deliveries. Communication and road networks emerge in the wake of the army and waterlines sprawl out to supply the entire army with fresh water. Such is the extent to which the Empire works to keep its army fully supplied that officials joke that by the time the invasion is over that the Imperial Army has already Urbanized the planet for them.

The Imperial Army also provides troops with GM crops that grow rapidly in almost any condition, these crops are not life-supporting as they lack the nutrition to live off but they will do for a few months if nothing else is available.

### Doctrines

#### Doctrine - Combined Arms

The infantry is in itself equipped with a large variety of weaponry, but it is also just one aspect of the military; while line infantry serves as the bulk of the army they also use tanks, mechs, artillery and clones. These other machines accompany the infantry into battle and function as hard points to the wide formations.

The infantry is equipped with powerful semi automatic laser guns, known to them as Scarlet Rifles, that when used in enough numbers can overcome armoured tanks; also, long-range anti tank rockets, short range crimson plasma throwers and some small shield bearers.

Tanks come in variations but have three main categories; brawler, line tank, battle tank. The brawler moves ahead of the infantry and skirmishes with the enemies forward units, these are often automated as they are not expected to last long but long enough to cover the infantries advance. The line tank advances with the infantry and is devastating at short range, it is designed to be the apparent threat to draw fire away from the infantry whilst they advance. The battle tank is essentially a normal tank that functions as most other nations' tanks do; mobile and flexible use for many different needs and roles.

#### Doctrine - The Great Barriers

The Imperial army relies heavily on massive shield generators that create massive shields capable of covering massive areas; these shields stop large incoming fire like orbital ordinance or artillery, to stop incoming projectiles they must be ether moving at very fast speeds or large. This means slow moving aircraft or small ordinance is capable of breaking through the grand barrier, or they are as long as the shield isn't intensified at the particular spot the aircraft tries to enter... because then they just smash against it.

This is not flawless; concentrated firepower is able to slip through even an intensified barrier, though it often fragments or is pushed off course. This protects the large formations from targeted fire but they are still exposed to the random chance of being hit by barrages.

The idea of massive shield is not used by other nations as they often do not protect enough troops to be worth powering, they also give off a massive "I'm over here" vibe to enemies that this is where the enemy is concentrated; there also extremely hard to power for long periods of time and are also prime targets for the enemy.

These shields do protect large quantities of Imperial troops though, the armies are so large that they always say "I'm over here"; power is resolved by constructing power factories around the shield and even landing space vessels and using their reactors for power... in fact they built space vessels for this purpose. Finally the issue of them being massive targets is resolved through the use of secondary shields that protect the generator and a lot of protection... the army is already heavily concentrated in the area so what's a few more thousand soldiers and AA guns.

### Tactics

#### Shield Bearers

In combat the real backbone is the infantry, while most nations have turned to advanced vehicles and death machines of war the Imperial Army instead uses the humble infantry, the Empire has so vast a military industrial complex that it is not exactly short of tanks and death machines; but for the Empire, tanks, artillery, airforce, mecha-death-machines etc etc, all support the infantry.

However infantry is still prone to dying from a bullet or lasgun, so the Imperial Army makes use of small portable shield generators capable of directional shielding; a sort of shieldwall, fitted to a combat technician in powered armour.

For mass distribution, ease of use and affordability, these shields have limited operational times of approximately four minutes and are only capable of reliably deflecting light small arm fire; heavy weapons and concentrated fire are able to shred any infantry that is otherwise exposed.

Unlucky for xeno though; when assaulted by tanks, shelled by artillery, bombed from orbit and reeling from airstrikes it can be quite disheartening to find that a human wave of Imperial soldiers bounding towards your position and that you can't seemingly even shoot them as a shield deflects the hastily fired shot. Only discipline and resolve can beat the shield when it is supported by heavy weapons, and even outside of ideal conditions the shield can take xeno by surprise.

The glaring weakness it that the battlefield technician is easy to single out and target, sniper fire or even mounted weaponry can single out and kill the shield bearer which leaves infantry unable to advance without getting mowed down (which they often do as they often realize too late the demise of the shield)

## Special Divisions and Regiments

The Empire is extremely large and many other planets have developed sub-cultures; to reflect this the Imperial Army has special divisions.

* The Valkyrie: Selected from special military training grounds the Valkyrie are all soldiers that excel in aerial and ground combat; the suit is the primary weapon, fitted with missiles for enemy aircraft, wrist rockets for ground vehicles and special swords to cleave through flesh and metal. While Valkyrie was once a word for a female warrior in an ancient nordic-type culture back on Earth the role is now entirely male or female.
* Valkyrie are expensive to train and equip though so the military only accepts the children of nobles (particularly rich families are expected to buy the suit, but then it is considered family property) many generals or commanders have been or are Valkyries as they have come to personify excellence and bravery.

These warriors have become greatly revered and the armour is now used in many ceremonies; diplomatic communication is often done using the armour, both to show pride in the epitome of martial prowess and to hide the face, which was the primary reason for its use back when the Empire sought to conceal its Human identity.

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