CDF Civil Guard

From NSwiki, the NationStates encyclopedia.
Jump to: navigation, search

The Civil Guard is an integral part of Sober Thought's Community Defence Forces and, because it is a military rather than naval or air organisation, more specifically the CDF Land Service. At the same time, it is an integral part of the public security apparatus of each province.

Since each province maintains its own Civil Guard, consult articles on individual provinces, e.g., Jarvet, Bristle Island, Central Province, for a discussion of specific provincial guard units, and CDF divisions for specific formations.

Unlike the full-time troops of the Land Service, the Civil Guard is explicitly raised in geographically-based regiments of one or more sequentially numbered battalions. Many regiments cover a single municipality, but some -- especially those providing combat or service support -- are province wide.


Role

This parttime militia of citizen soldiers is a major shared federal-provincial responsibility and authority both in terms of human and financial capital. Rather than discuss the federal and provincial spheres separately, this article will discuss both levels of government as they relate to functional matters of the Civil Guard.

Activation

The provincial government directs its own Civil Guard and may call it out by an act of the provincial executive or legislature, according to the customs and statutes of the province. Typically, this would be to provide disaster assistance after extreme weather and major mishaps, or security assistance during large public events or after civil unrest.

The federal government too can place all or part of the provincial Civil Guard on federal service provided a majority in the House of the Federation agree. As a matter of custom rather than law, the executive may advise provinces of such mobilisation plans before a legislative vote has been taken, ensuring that the minimum amount of time is lost and as little weakness is displayed to enemies as possible.

A month after mobilisation, when the Land Service fully integrates with the Civil Guard, militia units provide roughly 45% of each nominal field army of eleven division equivalents. This is broken down into 65%, 70%, 72%, 84% and 100% of five divisions per hundred million national population.

Civil Guard formations are very light on artillery compared to their Land Service counterparts. In fact, only the three most populous provinces have any artillery at all. This is because artillery has no legitimate role in aiding or policing a docile civilian population. Even among the provincial guards which have artillery regiments, in each population wave Central Province has only five of 37, Hochelaga only two of 23 and Thuvia only one of 13 battalions of artillery.

During full-scale mobilisation accompanied by the draft, certain militia command elements may also provide command for units and formations consisting primarily of conscripts. Redundant headquarters and communications companies, including their second executive officers, are hived off the main units to create the cadre for new units. This practice was especially popular in the real world Soviet Union.

Equipment

As far as is practicable, the CDF Civil Guard is equipped identically to its Land Service counterpart because both organisations are expected to work seamlessly. The federal government pays the full capital and recurring costs for all uniforms, weapons, vehicles and other war materiel.

This principle is most stringently adhered to in the provision of CDF small arms like pistols, rifles and machineguns. Even at the level of mortars and hand-held rockets this holds true. However, at the level of armoured vehicles like tanks, other tracked armoured vehicles and wheeled armoured vehicles clear differences can be ascertained.

While all the armoured fighting vehicles are identical models to those of fulltime soldiers, the parttimers are much more likely to be using armoured cars and wheeled armoured personnel carriers. This makes sense on several levels, since wheels are gentler on roads and farm fields than caterpillar tracks, and simplicity is important for citizen soldiers who wear two hats instead of one.


Organisation

The federal and provincial governments also negotiate the appropriate organisation for each Civil Guard, just as they do for establishing the minimum staffing levels required. At this juncture, however, the provinces have a much greater say in what regiments they will raise.

Considerations

Linguistic (notably in provinces like Hochelaga, Braunekuste and Capital Province with large language minorities), geographic (notably in provinces like Thuvia and Bristle Island with rugged terrain]]) and cultural (notably in provinces like Jarvet and Central Province with diverse ethnic origins) considerations may all play an important factor. This is true on the purely cosmetic level, e.g., the naming of specific regiments, but also on the structural level, e.g., mountain troops.

At the unit level, each Civil Guard battalion and company has exactly the same table of organisation as its Land Service sibling. At the formation level, this trend tends to break down. This is because provincial Civil Guards are of different sizes, and they have differing organisation for provincial and federal service.

In particular, the militia units are skewed towards the service support units like engineers, transport, health and maintenance because of their role in disaster recovery. One might think this makes the Civil Guard of less importance to the CDF as a whole, but one would think wrongly: Without the Civil Guard to maintain logistics, CDF divisions could not function properly and the sharp end of the Land Service would have to be diverted to noncombattant or support roles.

Armoured unit names

Armoured units tend to cling to the traditions and prestige of cavalry regiments of bygone eras, especially if they are light armour, reconnaissance or both. A few are rather generic, like the Thuvian Cavalry or Cholmestay Horse, but most are more fanciful. Consider the Schweindorf Hussars with their light armoured cars, Les Hussards [i.e., Hussars] Mont Royaume in their medium armoured cars, The Jarvet Uhlans in their armoured cars and The Braunekuste Cuirassiers/Les Cuirassiers braunekustiens in their light tanks. Such an approach also allows ethnic links to be established, to the Hungarians for the hussars, to the French for cuirassiers and to the Slavs for the uhlans.

A minority of armoured regiments, often equipped with heavier vehicles, openly embrace modern terms instead of antiquated cavalry ones. Consider the two self-described armoured regiments of medium and light tanks based in separate counties of the Sax Valley. Further north is the Pastbeshchye Tank Regiment of medium tanks, while further south is Le Regiment blindé in Hochelaga.

In most RL armies, dragoons are considered cavalry rather than the mounted infantry that they were when first formed. In Sober Thought, however, the original meaning has been restored and used in modern days to describe armoured infantry. This is exemplified in English by the Upper Sax Dragoons of infantry in tracked APCs and in French by Les Dragons hochelagais of infantry in wheeled APCs. Its more clear equivalents are regiments like the Drewburgh Mounted Rifles and Cholmestay Mounted Rifles. The Thuvian Grenadiers are slightly more ambiguous, but grenadiers were one of the assaulting flanking companies in the pre-19th century British regiments.

Other unit names

Besides the aforementioned armoured infantry, there is much specialisation and allusion to long-obsolete weapons or organisation in the names of infantry units. "Rangers," "Mountaineers" and "Chasseurs alpins" are used to indicate mountain infantry. Light infantry is refreshingly straightforward in English with "Light Infantry" being the most common nomenclature, followed by the somewhat slippier term "Rifles." In French Hochelaga, this group of infanteers is represented by Les Fusiliers Mont Royaume, Les Chasseurs à pied, Les Tirailleurs (de Hochelaga) and, more dubously, Les Voltigeurs.

Certain groups of names defy ordinary means of classification. Consider "Chasseurs": If they are "blindé" or "à cheval", they are armoured infantry; "à pied," light or dismounted infantry; and "alpins," mountain infantry. The situation is not quite as bad but nearly so with the linguistically connected "Fusiliers," "Rifles" and "Jaegers".

Service support regiments tend to be rather prosaic, like the Central Transport Regiment or Regiment hochelagais des Transports. A few make historical or cultural allusions, like the multi-ethnic sub-units of the Jarvet Security Battalion or sometimes cryptic Regiment hochelagais du Deuxième Bureau [military intelligence] component of the conventionally named Bataillon hochelagais de securité.

Much moreso than their fulltime counterparts, the parttimers tend to lump combat, civil and maintenance engineers into one regiment. Even the two most populous provinces, where one might expect division of labour would support different regiments, the engineers are lumped together and distinguished solely by parentheticals (Combat/combattant), (Civil/civile), (Maintenance/mécanique).

A few regiments sidestep the whole issue by simply adopting a geographic rather than role designation. For instance, Capital Province raises alternatively a battalion in the Bight Regiment and the Régiment de Mit-en-Haut. One would not know from looking at their titles that they are both regiments of armoured infantry in wheeled APCs.

Provincial organisation

For each one hundred million of national population, the following Civil Guard battalion equivalents, units and formations are raised:


Divisional organisation

Expressed in another way, the Civil Guard raises the following formations each population wave:


Personnel

Each province recruits its own residents for its own provincial Civil Guard using the general CDF qualifications and standards. The two levels of government negotiate the number of troops needed in each provincial Civil Guard, but this fraction rarely deviates much from a straight per capita calculation. Theoretically, a reduction of targets could be met by across the board reductions in each of the Civil Guards, but this has not happened often.

Training

Parttime militia members are trained by professional Land Service instructors in the training commands to perform exactly the same tasks fulltime army members. This starts with basic training, but qualifying courses for ranks beyond Defender/Soldier or Vice Lieutenant, and for specialised functions like engineers or artillery.

The province pays its guards every time they go on parade, train or are activated on provincial service during emergencies, large public events or civil unrest. Conversely, the federal government pays guards when they are activated on federal service, frequently during political crises or full-blown wars.

Promotion

Promotion within the Civil Guard is complex. The provincial government promotes those in the Master Soldier and Leading Soldier ranks, and may disregard any unflattering test results or indeed the absence of any testing at all. Those in the three lieutenant ranks must complete appropriate qualifying courses but need not pass them in order to be promoted by the province. Concessions in these two classes of soldiers should satisfy any quasi-legitimate political need for patronage or reward.

At the level of the six warrant officer and commander ranks, where performance is really an issue, the province may only promote successful graduates of the appropriate CDF courses. Note that these may not be distinguished graduates of the courses, but they must be at least bare minimum passes. In contrast, the regular force officers are promoted in the order in which they place in their courses.

To ensure political reliability, competence and federal influence over the provincial Civil Guard, the Community Defence Forces alone promote officers in the marshal ranks. This is especially important for provinces like Central Province, Hochelaga and Thuvia who routinely require divisional or higher commanders for formations made up largely or exclusively of militia.