Midlonian Armed Forces
Contents
M.A.F High Command
The high command structure of the M.A.F is fairly simplistic, each division of the M.A.F has a supreme head, and every 10 years they convene to elect a Supreme M.A.F Commander.
Branches of the M.A.F
The Midlonian Armed Forces, more commonly known as “M.A.F” is an all encompassing term for the various branches of the military under the control of the Greater Kingdom of Midlonia. The M.A.F is impressive in size, but not always impressive in competence, many seeing the M.A.F as either weak or “permanently confused” due to its lack of concrete doctrines and standard uniform, preferring the option of “guidelines” and recommendations, allowing for spontaneity in methods on the battlefield, allowing officers to make decisions on the ground in a first hand viewpoint instead of a method of “how it should happen” hammered into other armed forces across the world, who could merely reach for their doctrine books at every problem faced.
Midlonian Ground Forces
Midlonian Royal Army
The Midlonian Royal Army is one of the primary strengths of the M.A.F. A professional, all volunteer force the M.R.A is a career path for life for those who join.
The M.R.A is the backbone of all Midlonian Ground forces, while not huge in size or scale its professionalism and careful organization is well known, its permanent positions cutting out a lot of the chaos associated with the other branches of the Midlonian Ground Forces.
As such, the M.R.A tends to be given the best and newest equipment, including such things as the Gresley Mark V Main Battle Tank, and the experimental “M.A.T.T” batteries being some of the best and newest equipment to roll out of Midlonian Workshops in recent years, straight into the hands of the solid and professional M.R.A.
Territorial Army
The Territorial Army, or “T.A” as it is often abbreviated to is the enforced military service body of the Midlonian Ground Forces. Persons who are unemployed between the ages of 18-26 are ordered to serve at least a 3 year tour of duty.
The three year stints usually result in deployment to various colonies, as well as internal deployment to various positions around the Greater Kingdom, no locally raised unit is kept in its locality when deployed, so that should an uprising occur, the T.A which would be sent in to quell it, would not hesitate to put it down as necessary because friends or loved ones may be involved.
The T.A is a “Hand-me-down” organization, its armour units use the ageing Cromwell Mk VII, a mobile bunker armed with a powerful main gun, as opposed to the more agile Gresley Mk V, the Cromwell tends to be slow, heavy and cumbersome. Its infantry and mechanized infantry units use several different kinds of rifle, some even using the ancient Middelstand Self Repeating Rifle as used in The Second Moonstone War.
The constantly changing size of the T.A is its key weakness, its organizational structure is on the verge of organized chaos with some bases and weapons storage facilities being emptied for anything up to a decade with all of its equipment still in place, bureaucracy tending to be slower then when units reach their full term. Some T.A units however are never disbanded, the most famous of which can be found under Special M.A.F Units
Martian Defence Forces
The MDF are responsible for the defence of the two Midlonian colonies on the red planet, most of the staff are now more logistical than offensive in nature upon the completion of the first three layers of the Cyprus defensive line, the increasingly automated and missile-based defences along with ZMI designed drone swarms of Martian Midlonia result in the less and less need of actual flesh and blood personnel. However, there is still a fairly potent tank force and all personnel are still given firearms training in the unlikely event of an enemy breeching one of the Hive-cities, though again automated defence systems feature prominently in the wide boulevards and narrow corridors of the insides of the cities.
Midlonia is a dispersed nation, there are no two ways about it, each colony is far from the homeland. This means that maritime plays a key role in the Greater Kingdom’s maintenance and projection power. In order to enforce its trade lanes The Royal Navy is there to handle most threats to the sea lanes Midlonian vessels patrol.
The MSN is the main body of The Royal Navy, made up of powerful destroyer and carrier arms the MSN has aimed as ship killing as its primary purpose.
The MSN relies on its powerful missile and gun-based ships to bring about the destruction of ships many times their size, there is a special class of destroyer to be launched soon called the Avaetus Class, this destroyer is to be equipped solely with weaponry to destroy ships with increasingly thicker belt armour.
Midlonian Submarine Unit
While classified as only a "unit" overall, it is fairly well known that the Submarine “unit” is in fact closer to the strength of that of several Midlonian Armadas (which conist of around 240 vessels) This forms the First Submarine Armada, not an awful lot is known on the submarine fleets classes or capabilities, the occasional glimpse of Midlonian submarine elements merely shows an unremarkable hull, though a slight paper trail refers to the concepts of both a Submarine Battleship and a Submarine Carrier, though whether these projects exist or not remains a mystery. Thought it is rumoured that a Submarine Carrier was seen in the Strobovian Strait during the
Midlonian Air Force “The Royal Air force”
The Royal Airforce is the smallest of all three branches, the Navy and army still retaining fairly powerful air arms almost results in the independence of the R.A.F pointless, however it is here that more innovative concepts and aeronautic designs are put into practice. The R.A.F is also responsible for most air-defence systems in the Greater Kingdom as a whole.
The most recent project conducted by the R.A.F is the Air cruiser concept, the first prototype unit is HMAC Wetmoore, exactly how this craft works currently remains a major mystery as its quoted weight is over 90,000 tonnes and documents on it, aside from the fact it exists, remains strictly top secret.
The Midlonian Aerospace Navy (M.A.N) is the newest body of the M.A.F, consisting of around 700 warships and numerous support ships the M.A.N mostly relies on license built and imported ZMI weaponry and ship designs, this is mostly because Midlonian Aerospace engineers cannot compete with the price and ease of use of ZMI pattern weaponry.
Special M.A.F Units
Within the M.A.F are certain elite units which are known and sang of in the halls of many beer halls and written down in many textbooks. Below here are those units along with their main purpose.
1st Royal Combined Regiment, the “Bluebloods”
The First Royal Combined Regiment or RCR is a large formation that is truly a leftover from ancient eras, the Bluebloods were a foot and cavalry regiment formed during the Great Island War (see: A Consolidated History of Midlonia for more on the Great Island War) The original Bluebloods regiment was disbanded in 1647.
Consisting of mostly nobles (and now the relatives and children of powerful business men) the Bluebloods are often referred to as the “Toy Soldier” regiment as it has all three arms of the M.A.F within its makeup, and is rarely deployed to any areas where there is remote questioning of either the government, or the Royal Family. Often mocked as it seems that its just wealthy business men and women and Nobles playing Soldier, for the most part they are right, but by the formation of the Bluebloods the main structure and competence of the Midlonian High Command is not weakened by incompetent Nobles who could ruin entire armies under their command as seen in The Second Moonstone War the reformation of the Bluebloods came about as part of the Moonstone Redemption safely locking away the nobles into one tidy unit, and allowing the nobles to claim they had served time in the military.
Land Warfare Battle Group #3 Sword and Shield
LWBG #3 is one of the few oddities in the Territorial Army, it is its only “permanent” unit, while under the command structure and control of the Territorial Army, recruits are initially drafted in as part of the 3 year term, if the recruits make the grade they are offered a permanent position within the unit. The prestige of being associated with a LWBG unit is quite tempting for all involved and most T.A recruits attempt to gain entry into the LWBG, and the inbox of the unit remains nearly permanently flooded, both physically and electronically.
LWBG #3 is special as it is the only LWBG specifically allotted for Homeland defence of the Great Island, the other 6 LWBG’s (under the control and auspices of 2 for the Navy and 4 for the Army) having naval transportation arranged for them. As such the symbol of LWBG #3 on its smaller units is a sword and shield for identification purposes, the larger units having a very obvious tank motif with “LWBG” and its number stamped across it.
Fith Squadron
The 5th Squadron of the 12 Air Armada is the most elite air unit in the Royal Air Force, it has a longstanding history as the 5th air unit formed in Midlonia, it is now the oldest as the other 4 squadrons were disbanded shortly before The Second Moonstone War Pilots are drawn from any air-arm of the M.A.F and only the truly elite of the air gain entry into the squadron.
