Difference between revisions of "Community Defence Forces"

Latest revision as of 21:21, 2 January 2007

The Community Defence Forces are the all-environment armed forces of Sober Thought, in which peacetime service is voluntary. The Minister of Community Defence is responsible for overseeing the CDF and ensuring civilian control over military forces.

Integrated commands

The nominal Commander-in-Chief of the CDF is the Community Conscience of Sober Thought. In practice, control is exercised by the Combined Staff containing the five most senior marshals of the CDF. The five positions are Chief of the Combined Staff, Deputy Chief of the Combined Staff, Chief of the Land Service, Chief of the Naval Service and Chief of the Air Service. Only the latter three must have had their main military experience serving with the service they represent.

The combined staff is tasked with recruiting, training and organising troops. It also makes strategic plans, then assigns the operational plans to the command, formation or unit it has designated to execute it. The chief of each of the three services have only a support role and do not interfere with operations directly.

It is a central principle of the CDF that those who make operational plans should execute them. Therefore, the subordinate commanders of the Combined Staff actually make the detailed plans and put them into practice so that staff errors are borne by themselves in combat.

As an integrated armed forces, operational commands may combine air, sea and land elements responsible to a single commander for all services. Furthermore, after the House of the Provinces has voted to make it so, the provincial Civil Guards may be directly integrated into the CDF for tactical or strategic purposes. Formations and task forces of all sizes are quickly created and all elements fall under the command of a single person.

One permanent example of this in action is the Coastal Defence Command, which combines Coastal Defence Air Groups of the Air Service (via Naval Air Divisions), Coastal Artillery Divisions of the Land Service and Independent Coastal Task Groups of the Naval Service. A landing ship group's vice commander has three principal subordinates and groups of troops: the chief lieutenant of the ship with 100 sailors, the chief lieutenant of the Marine Assault Companies with 250 soldiers and the chief lieutenant of the Composite Helictoper Squadron with 100 fliers.

Graphic symbols for troops

Main article: Community Defence Forces hieroglyphics.

In theory, there are three clear groupings of troops and arms: formations, which are considered transient or only semi-permanent, and are the largest sized groupings; units, permanent, and medium sized; and sub-units, permanent and always subordinate to (and hence are smaller than ) units. Although in practice the boundary can be somewhat blurred, this rough guide is sufficient for the purpose of this brief introduction:

• Land Service, army groups, armies, corps, divisions, brigade groups; battalions, independently raised companies; companies raised as part of battalions, platoons, squads, teams
• Naval Service, grand fleets, fleets, flotillas; vessels; departments, watches
• Air Service, air army group, air armies, air corps, air divisions, air groups, wings; squadrons, independently raised flights, independently raised detachments; flights, detachments

The CDF uses graphic symbols for these formations, units and subunits on maps, tables of organisation, vehicle markings, etc. Because of their use of intuitive shapes, positions and interrelations, they are nicknamed "hieroglyphics."

They are similar to their real life counterparts in NATO or U.S. Army, e.g., an "X" indicates infantry, a small rectangle with rounded corners in the centre armoured, a small circle in the centre artillery, an "E" on the left engineering, etc. The symbols are cumulative, so an X with a rounded rectangle indicates armoured infantry, i.e., infantry soldiers transported in armoured vehicles who fight dismounted. Unlike NATO and the USA, as a tri-service organisation the CDF uses them for naval, air and combined operations troops as well.

This chart shows three armoured, three armoured infantry, two infantry and one light infantry division; plus one airborne, two armoured, two armoured infantry, 3 artillery, one security, one engineering and three support brigades or brigade groups of non-divisional troops commanded directly by the corps or army headquarters.

Land Service

Main article: CDF Land Service.

Combat units in the Land Service are organized on the following basis, listing unit or formation, number of soldiers and commanding officer:

Platoon                20-40     Vice Lieutenant
Company               50-250     Lieutenant
Battalion            300-800     Vice Commander
Brigade          1 000-4 000     Commander
Brigade Group    2 000-6 000     Chief Commander   
Division        8 000-18 000     Vice Marshal or Chief Commander
(Field) Corps  20 000-70 000     Marshal
(Field) Army 120 000-300 000     Chief Marshal
Army Group          400 000+     Chief Marshal or Grand Marshal  

Units are usually permanent groupings of personnel, typically battalions or (less commonly) companies. Formations may be very transient groupings of several or many units. Constituent parts of units are called subunits, typically companies or platoons.

For every 100 million of Sober Thought's population, there are the following number of regular force armoured, infantry and artillery brigades reporting to the commander of a field army: 9 armoured, 1 airborne infantry, 7 armoured infantry, 1 mountain (broken up upon mobilisation), 1 regular (in this case, light) infantry, 15 artillery (including four field, five armoured and three coastal defence). Each cluster of brigades staffed exclusively by fulltime Land Service soldiers maintains a separate numerical sequence, e.g., there are 1st Brigades named Armoured, Airborne, Armoured Infantry, Mountain, Light Infantry; but no 2nd Brigades for the second, last or second to last sequences.

On the same population basis, the provinces' Civil Guards provide the following brigades (keeping separate sequences for each Civil Guard or group of Civil Guards regardless of branch or sub-branch): 2 armoured, 4 armoured infantry, 3 under-strength mountain infantry (brought up by breaking up the one regular force mountain), 5 regular infantry (two motorised medium and three motorised light infantry) and 1 artillery brigades.

Most of these LS and CG brigades are nominally organized into one field army (numbering beginning with First Army) consisting of three corps (beginning with I-III Corps) commanding nine divisions total as described below. One airborne and one armoured brigade groups report directly to the army commander. Correspondingly, one armoured and one heavy artillery brigades report to the first corps commander, one armoured infantry and one heavy artillery to the second, and one armoured infantry and one non-specific artiller to the last.

Disregarding the divisional air wings, 4 divisions (1st, 2nd and 4th Armoured, and 3rd Armoured Infantry) consist entirely of regular troops, the 9th Armoured Infantry Division entirely of Central Province Civil Guards, the 8th Infantry Division 84% of Hochelaga Civil Guards]] (counting by battalions, and reorganised every three waves into one division each of armoured infantry, motorised infantry and dismounted light infantry), and 3 divisions (5th Armoured Infantry, 6th Light Infantry, 7th Mountain) mainly of Guards but including 28-35% Regulars.

For every one hundred million residents in the country, the marines raise a division numbered outside the sequence listed above. Although nominally belonging to the Land Service, marines report to the Chief of the Naval Service while afloat and only become meaningfully subordinated to the Land Service after a successful landing.

The marines have one sequence for all of its own brigades, regardless of branch, and they raise in a similar manner the following: 1 marine light infantry (existing as one battalion, six companies, twelve platoons and twenty-seven squads afloat combattant ships with onshore cadre), 1 marine armoured and 1 marine heavy armoured infantry (existing as one marine assault contingent of eighteen companies while aboard [[Community Vessel Landing Ship|landing ships]), 1 marine artillery and 1 marine support brigades.

Civil Guard

Main article: CDF Civil Guard

Each province maintains its own Civil Guard comprised of part-time citizen soldiers organized into territorial regiments with the same structure, equipment and arms as the CDF Land Service proper. The Civil Guards are armed and trained by the federal troops of the Land Service, but they are paid by their respective provincial governments.

The provincial government directs its Civil Guard and may call it out in times of unrest or emergency in the province. Following authorization by the House of the Provinces, the federal government may also call some or all of them out for service with the CDF in times of war or tension. When the Land Service fully mobilizes, Civil Guard units and formations comprise 65% of 1, 70% of 1, 72% of 1, 84% of 1, 100% of 1 land divisions per hundred million national population or roughly 45% of each nominal field army.

The provinces recruit their own residents into their Civil Guards using the general CDF qualifications and standards. The provincial government promotes those in the Master Soldier, Leading Soldier and the three lieutenant ranks. It may also promote successful graduates of appropriate CDF courses in the six warrant officer and commander ranks. The CDF alone promotes officers in the marshal ranks.

Obviously, the size of the civil guard differs as widely as the population of each of the provinces. However, for each one hundred million of national population, the following Civil Guard battalions (and the field units and formations [armoured and infantry] in the first wave) are raised:

• Central Province; 37; entire 9th Division, one brigade of 6th Light Infantry Division, one brigade of 7th Mountain Division
• Hochelaga; 23; vast bulk of 8th Division, one brigade of 7th Mountain Division
• Thuvia; 13; one brigade each of 5th Armoured Infantry and 7th Mountain Divisions
• Cholmestay; 10; one brigade of 6th Light Infantry Division
• Jarvet; 4; battalions only of 5th and 6th Divisions
• Pastbeshchye; 3; battalions only of 5th and 6th Divisions
• South Island; 2+1 equivalent; every third field brigade of 5th Armoured Infantry Division after third population wave
• Capital Province; 2; not incorporated into field army, remain in capital
• Braunekuste; 1+1 eq; every third field brigade of 5th Armoured Infantry Division after third population wave
• North Island; 1+0.6 eq; every third field brigade of 5th Armoured Infantry Division after third population wave
• Potato Island; 0+0.4 eq; elements of 5th Armoured Infantry Division, whole battalions constituted when possible

Air Service

Main article: CDF Air Service.

The basic fighting unit of the Air Service is the squadron, except in naval aviation where flights and detachments are more common. When units serve alone, they have the supporting ground crew directly responsible to the squadron (flight or detachment) leader. When units serve together in formations, the ground crew are hived off and the squadron becomes solely a flight unit.

Below are air service units or formations, aircraft, personnel (independent and formation) and commanders:

Detachment          1 aircraft          10-50        1-15     Vice Lieutenant
Flight            2-5 aircraft         30-100        2-50     Lieutenant
Squadron         6-18 aircraft        100-500       6-100     Chief Lieutenant
Wing            15-40 aircraft      200-1 500      18-200     Vice Commander
Air Group      50-100 aircraft    2 000-4 000      50-400     Commander or Chief Commander
Air Division  200-400 aircraft   5 000-10 000   200-2 000     Vice Marshal or Chief Commander
Air Corps     400-600 aircraft  12 000-20 000                 Marshal
Air Force        600+ aircraft  20 000-40 000                 Chief Marshal

The Air Service provides considerable air support to its Land Service and Naval Service counterparts, and these air assests are organized and suborinated to the other services. The "real" air service is called the Strategic Air Corps (or Force, depending on its size).

For every 100 million of population, the Air Service contributes the following squadrons (Strategic Air Corps/Army Air Corps/Naval Air Division):

Jet

6/0/0 bomber
30/3/12 fighter
0/9/0 tank busting
0/4/0 strategic transport
1/0/0 strategic reconnaissance
2/4/0 tactical reconnaissance
1/1/1 strategic airborne warning and control
0/1/0.3 tactical airborne warning and control
1/1/0 radar jamming
0/0/0.3 carrierborne radar jamming
3/1/1 in-flight refuelling tanker
0/0/0.7 carrierborne refuelling tanker 

Propeller

0/3/0 gunship
0/9/0 tactical transport
0/0/3 maritime patrol

Helicopter

0/9/0 ground attack 
0/0/12 naval composite (attack, utility and transport)
0/0/12 naval utility (6 squadrons search and rescue only)
0/12/0 land utility
0/12/0 land transport

Naval Service

Main article: CDF Naval Service.

For every one hundred million citizens in Sober Thought, the Naval Service commissions the following (number of ships or boats, type, displacement, total crew (overall ranking officer), naval crew (ranking officer) + embarked air crew (ranking officer) + embarked land (ranking officer):

Combat Ships

1 aircraft carrier, 70 000 tonnes, ~5 000 (Chief Commander)
 ~2 000 (Commander) + ~2 300 (Commander) + 515 (Chief Lieutenant)
6 missile cruisers, 11 000 tonnes, 530 (Commander)
 385 (Commander) + 30 (Lieutenant) + 115 (Lieutenant)
12 missile destroyers, 5 400 tonnes, 330 (Vice Commander)
 265 (Vice Commander) + 30 (Lieutenant) + 35 (Vice Lieutenant)
24 anti-submarine frigates, 4 000 tonnes, 220 (Chief Officer)
 189 (Chief Officer) + 20 (Vice Lieutenant) + 11 (Leading Soldier)
24 patrol submarines, 2 400 tonnes (dived), 50 (Lieutenant)
12 fast patrol boats, 400 tonnes, 35 (Vice Lieutenant)
9 mine sweeping and laying boats, 800 tonnes, 30 (Vice Lieutenant)

Combined Operations and Support Ships

1 troop transport, up to 5600 (Chief Commander)
 500 (Commander) + 80 (Lieutenant) + up to 5 000 (Commander or Chief Commander)
9 assault landing ships, 2 200 tonnes, 450 (Vice Commander)
 100 (Chief Lieutenant) + 100 (Chief Lieutenant) + 250 (Chief Lieutenant)
9 supply ships, 80 (Lieutenant)
2 small craft tenders (frigate hulls), 4 000 tonnes, 150 (Chief Lieutenant)
 120 (Chief Lieutenant) + 30 (Lieutenant)

To the nearest thousand, for every 1 000 000 citizens there are about 17 000 sailors, 5 000 naval fliers and 4 000 marines afloat, plus 35 000, 22 000 and 32 000 ashore totalling 52 000, 27 000 and 43 000.

Rank, appointment and posting

Main article: CDF ranks.

As befitting a unified service, the ranks for officers are identical for those in the Land Service, Naval Service and Air Service. The highest ranking officer of any formation or unit is called "commanding officer." The second highest ranking officer or deputy commanding officer is called "executive officer." The Naval Service informally retains "captain" as a synonym, but since there are no ranks of captain this causes no confusion.

Among non-officers there are many difference in appointment but none in rank. For instance, five people holding the same rank of Chief Warrant Officer may hold the different appointments of Brigade Sergeant, Battalion Sergeant, Group Sergeant, Wing Sergeant and Ships Petty Officer. At the lowest rank, Defender, the appointments of Soldier, Sailor and Flier have practically become indistinguishable with rank by all but the most knowledgeable sticklers.

All troops show rank on their epaulettes, along with insignia indicating branch or service. Field uniforms are olive green and dress uniforms mid-blue. Troops serving with the Combined Staff always have their branches and ranks in gold. Other troops always have their branches in grey, and their ranks in black for field and white for dress uniforms.