Royal Red Navy

**Mission**
The primary mission of the Royal Red Navy is to decisively protect Red citizens, interests, territory, and shipping anywhere on Flairia by generating and sustaining a well-trained, well-equipped, deployable, and multipurpose maritime force that works closely in conjunction with the Red Air Combat Force to conduct security and humanitarian operations in a variety of contexts. Secondary missions for the Royal Red Navy include deterring aggression, covertly collecting intelligence, promoting world peace, and to project maritime power.

**History**
After Purple’s pioneering of aerial combat with dragons, Red became the second colour to take to the skies with the development of airships. Reconnaissance, command, and bombing—the possibilities were limitless. Other colours eventually learned the closely-guarded secrets and made their own airships, but by then, Red airships had already been enhanced with runes. Long-range airships understandably served as the mainstay of Red defence, offence, and power projection for centuries. Airships’ versatility meant that only a small standing army was needed, and they were popular among both leaders and citizens.

The first precursors of the Royal Red Navy were a flotilla of boats known as the Red Coast Guard. There were some things you just couldn’t do from an airship, and the Red Coast Guard took on many of those duties like search and rescue, monitoring biological populations, and icebreaking. As Flairia-wide shipping and fishing increased later on, the Red Coast Guard gradually started to perform other duties including fisheries enforcement, anti-piracy, pollution response, hydrographic mapping, shipping escort, and minesweeping. Eventually bureaucrats realised that rescuing wildlife from oil spills and trading shots with Orange pirates were two very different jobs, and the Royal Red Navy was finally formed in 1894.

Established just in time for the Great Flair War, the miniscule Royal Red Navy came under attack from the Purple, Blue, and Orange navies. Stretched thin and surrounded on all sides, the Royal Red Navy was humiliated when a Blue submarine snuck through—without much difficulty, as it was later revealed—and levelled the supposedly safe city of Minesk with a non-nuclear explosive device and clever chain reaction with the ammunition factories located in the city. The primary job for the Royal Red Navy quickly became anti-submarine warfare, while the Red Air Combat Force focused on surface ships. They were more vulnerable to bombs and missiles compared to submarines.

After the war, Minesk was rebuilt. The Royal Red Navy used the vast majority of its resources to counter the ever-stealthier Blue submarines, and hundreds of new frigates were launched at the Minesk shipyards. Red’s first naval aircraft carriers were also built during this time, as the latest fighters had grown too heavy to be launched from airships. Although some submarines were also developed, they were unpopular with the military because communication was difficult and coordination with other units was nearly impossible. A primitive submarine aircraft carrier was also developed and tested, with mixed results. As tensions cooled and Flairia globalised, the Royal Red Navy has been modernising and expanding its focus to include surface combat as well.

**Doctrine**
As with other navies, the doctrine of the Royal Red Navy is the foundation upon which equipment, operations, procedure, strategy, and tactics are built. Every sailor should have a basic understanding of the doctrine, and officers should have extensive knowledge and take it to heart. To be clear, doctrine is any of those things mentioned above. It is the conceptual framework that connects those together to make the Royal Red Navy an effective fighting force.

Important points of the doctrine include:
- The Royal Red Navy is to closely coordinate with the Red Air Combat Force
- Anti-submarine warfare is the primary focus of the Royal Red Navy
- To this end, all other operations are secondary
- Blue and Purple submarines are to be tracked even in peacetime
- Fast carrier task forces are necessary to project Red power around Flairia
- Force concentration and proficiency at combined operations are the greatest strengths of the Royal Red Navy
- Command of the sea must be achieved in and around Red waters
- Active defence techniques are to be used in the event of war, rather than seeking a decisive battle

**Organisation**
The Royal Red Navy is a part of the broader Red armed forces, under the control of the Minister of Warfare. The highest-ranking naval officer is the Chief of the Naval Staff. Naval forces are divided into six components: the East Sea Fleet, the South Sea Fleet, the Red Naval Reserve, Surface Command, Subsurface Command and Red Naval Infantry. Red does not have a separate Marine force, and all aircraft in the Royal Red Navy are actually operated by the Red Air Combat Force. As for the Red Coast Guard, they are a wholly separate civilian organisation under the control of the Minister of Domestic Affairs. On occasion, the Royal Red Navy works in cooperation with Homeland Command, Happenstance, and the Strategic Operations Force.

**Facilities**
The Royal Red Navy’s headquarters are located in Minesk, and most surface ships that are not on an operation can be found there. Additionally, the barracks for the naval infantry are also located in Minesk. Finally, more than 80% of naval ships are built and repaired in the drydocks of RNB Barlyov. There are facilities all along the Red coast and on some remote islands for the Royal Red Navy’s ships to resupply on operations, and a secret submarine base for the rarely-seen Red submarines at an undisclosed location.

**Equipment**
[In the future, this will ideally have links to specific articles about a piece of equipment. For now there’s only bullet points with rough numbers, sadly.]
- The most numerous ship in the Royal Red Navy is the Ferrite-class frigate
Specialised for anti-submarine warfare, it nevertheless has a helipad
- The second most numerous ship is the Waen-class destroyer
It’s much bigger than the Ferrite-class and specialised for anti-air
- There are several small aircraft carriers that can double as amphibious assault ships
They travel in carrier battle groups at all times for protection
- They typically carry a mixture of jet aircraft and helicopters
- There are also several replenishment ships that can resupply naval ships, airships, and submarines
- The Royal Red Navy operates some submarines, mostly used as aircraft carriers or nuclear deterrence