Stevidian Military
Contents
His Majesty’s Imperial Army
The Army of Stevid boasts itself as a tactically superior force to many armies out there including some of the more dominant super powers that currently threat Imperial shores and colonies. The Army, by comparison of other super powers, is relatively small as far as man power is concerned but makes up for it with some of the most intense training of weapons, battlefield techniques and physical condition in the world. A fit soldier is key to success in any war, then train him to kill a man with either a gun or his bare hands and then train him in the various tactics and survival skills of war, you have a real killing machine and quite literally a one man army. This is the perfect soldier, a man who can run a mile in minutes, kill ten men in as many seconds with an airgun, and coordinate groups of soldiers to take and hold or eliminate enemy positions on the frontline- this is a Stevidian soldier, a soldier to be rightly feared.
Training is as tough as it gets in life and is used primarily to weed out the weaker men from the strong potentials and then work extra hard on upgrading the fitness of the weaker ones to the levels of the strong ones. This sort of intense training is seen only given to Marines of other nations but Stevid’s own army receives the same treatment to make it one of the world’s best fighting forces on the ground and the air. Training usually takes place in Stevid and the island of Rubet especially in the temperate zones where simple survival and battlefield techniques are sought out inside an individual and harnessed by commanders who then teach the men how to use themselves and their surroundings effectively to good use. Training of weaponry is usually conducted in forests and open fields too especially the art of sniper and tank hunting, training assaults are commonly practised in the open too as well as rapid advancing and disembarkation of APCs that make the army a rapid reaction force which is so urgently needed in a growing Empire like Stevid’s.
Stevid prides itself on rapid armoured assaults and urban warfare which makes it so deadly in certain campaigns of war, fortunately for the Army Stevid has the harsh and barren terrain in which these tactics are drilled to perfection. The barren ash wastelands of Stevid is a huge stretch dust and ash the cuts Stevid in two. It is here where the industry of Stevid starts, over a hundred uranium mines are located here and iron and coal works flourish towards the polluted coastal areas. Light rarely penetrates the Wastelands as a single volcano continually belches ash and smoke from its hellish interior, the whole region is covered in ash and three large cities have been completely abandoned by the councils and populations and are now over run by criminal war lords and gangs, perfect for the Army’s rigorous training programme.
The professional army sweep large areas of the city clean of ‘vermin’ and then the recruits are brought in. Here, in falling ash and in the respirators and in full military gear, they live for twenty-five days. It is one of harshest conditions to man and they have to eat, sleep, wash and train in it. For one solid week in one of the cities a group of one hundred recruits are split in two (50) and are give a section of the city each which then becomes their territory. A week long simulated war begins between the two using blanks in their guns but IR laser designators to signal whether a hit is scored. Those hit are eliminated and sent to another part of the city under military to continue survival training and how to improve on their mistakes during the war. During the week, the objective is to take the enemy’s Capital Building (usually an abandoned skyscraper each visible from sides of the city) by raiding it and planting the flag in place of the enemies. Using all they have learned outside of the Wastelands and without the help of sergeants supervising the combat, they are to “fight” for a week in this harsh environment. Rarely does anyone die from the conditions (so long as they keep their respirators on during ash fall) and it is usually good fun that both sides enjoy. Half the city is used for the war and so proper urban tactical procedures and manoeuvres can be performed within the city. ‘Oysters’ are planted throughout the city- in other words this means that certain objects planted by the Army are scattered around the city, hidden, waiting to be used. These can be anything from vehicles to full functional heaters and other luxuries. Vehicles can be simple ones found wreaked on the streets, thousands of abandoned cars that aren’t planted by the military and can easily be hotwired by a clever recruit and used to bulldoze through a position giving cover to fellow soldiers behind- trucks are a favourite of ambitious recruit leaders and usually means that that side will usually win most conflicts. All vehicles are IR tagged by the RAF before battle (usually done a day before combat) so that damage to the vehicle by laser weapons fire is recorded which means it is perfectly possible to destroy a truck with small arms fire by “destroying” the fuel tank and killing those inside. Luckier recruits will find planted military equipment which is usually a single tank or if one is even luckier- two tanks. The recruits are told this and it isn’t rare for recruit leaders to send out scouting parties to search the deserted ash strewn streets for he military hardware they were promised. If a tank is found then the enemy have the specialist means to destroy it i.e. laser RPGs and fake AT mines. If the recruits can not adapt to such a threat then the modified cannon to wipe out a defensive position and offer fire support when the capital building is attacked, the week long war can easily be over in little under an hour with luck on ones side. It is not unknown that the Army leave a radio with a list of frequencies that call for attack helicopter gunship support that the Army Air Corp gladly provide and simulate ground attacks and missile attacks can be called upon to win the day by clearing out the capital building and then assaulting it.
One particular battle left one side against the other sides three Challenger II tanks that they had managed to find in two days. Seemingly impossible odds to counter with just fifty men however they had the radio and the frequency to call in air support from two AH-64 gunships which they were saving for an assault on the enemy’s Capital Building but since the enemy were making a full blown assault on their side of the city with all fifty men and three MBTs they had to use the gunships. They were called in to destroy the tanks and mop up what resistance they could before leaving, it worked- both tanks were “destroyed” and twenty men were “killed” with a further fifteen captured leaving only fifteen to defend the capital building. Having not sustained any losses, the fifty men of the other army assault the Capital building with hijacked armoured security vans and took the enemy’s capital building losing only five men. The leader was swiftly granted a commission into the army along with twelve other members of the “army”.
Training in these cities and these environments makes the Stevidian Army already battle hardened before actually going to war and improves urban combat ratings all round. Urban combat takes more lives in war than open terrain does because of the surprises both sides can unleash on each other and thus makes the Stevidian Army more at hone in urban combat than in any other- that excel in all terrain theatres but well and truly shine in urban theatres.
More recently integrated into the Stevidian Army Military Doctrine is the use of rapid infantry and armoured assaults that follow similar lines to the Blitzkrieg tactic used by the Germans in World War II. It was seen by the Army to be a costly kind of tactic and wasn’t commended much by the top brass and was even shunned away completely, however during the Holy Panooly Civil War 24th Foot Infantry Regiment assaulted rebel positions via Warrior APCs and over ran the enemy’s lines at the outskirts of Volta City, crushing all opposition. That is the jist of the operation which took more planning than as just stated but the plan worked and since then the Army has practise armoured assaults. The use of heavy and medium tanks with an incredible off road speed are preferred to slow heavy tanks that boast lots of armour and firepower (although a fast one of those is being purchased). Overrunning the enemy’s lines before they can adequately counter-attack or plug a hole in the advance is paramount and the Army’s previous tactic of subtle wearing down the enemy’s defences before a mass infantry and tank assault and flanking attack has been disregarded as rubbish by some tacticians. Rapid assault and advancing into enemy territory but not so much as to out run ones supply lines is now used and drilled extensively in His Majesty’s Imperial Army.
His Majesty’s Imperial Guard
To put it simply, the Imperial Guard are like the King’s and Royal Family’s own private army under strict regulations on numbers set out by the government and are tasked with defending the Royal Family and their Royal estates and assets. Much like the Palace Guards at Buckingham Palace in Great Britain, the Imperial Guard is the best of the best as far as discipline is concerned. Their mental discipline far surpasses that of a regular rifleman and their loyalty to King and Country is unquestionable thus they are ready to die in the name of the God, King and Stevid with no questions asked, an obligation that is respected and admired throughout the country.
They rarely go to the frontline and are only present in war if a member of the Royal Family is serving on the frontline or in any major theatre of war. A small detachment accompanies the King and his wife wherever they travel in the country and guard their Royal Estates whether they are occupied by either a member of the Royal Family or someone of nobility or not- it pays to show a good image to the general public and to tourists visiting the capital city or houses belong to the Royals.
Their training is exactly the same as the regular army and territorial army seeing as they military fighting soldiers none the less, however if they excel themselves during their training with the other recruits they are offered a commission in the Imperial Guard to which they can accept with the knowledge of greater responsibility and an increase in payroll, or to decline and serve the King and the Empire on the frontlines protecting the country and its citizens from hostile foreign powers. Many recruits choose to decline but a fair few accept the additional responsibilities and rigid discipline it requires to be a member of the Imperial Guard. Members of the Imperial Guard will also know that they will be the last Stevidian soldiers to fall if Stevid is invaded, dying to protect the Royal Family and their households is their ultimate goal and sacrifice and will be the last to die when fighting foreign powers on Stevidian soil.
The pride and joy of Stevid, the one truly major thing Stevid as a nation and as a military, economic and political super power is known by, the Royal (Imperial) Navy of Stevid. This is the single largest military branch in Stevid and receives also quadruple funding as either the Royal (Imperial) Air Force or the Army. Stevid is an island nation and relies heavily on a powerful navy to provide adequate air and sea defence in conjunction with the Fleet Air Arm. Today’s Royal Navy is the biggest it has ever been and seeing as war exists between Stevid numerous other nations, ship building to replace lost vessels and to add to current numbers is high on both the Admiralty’s and government’s agenda in parliament.
While not an official arms supplier to the world, Stevid boasts highly that it has one of the high rates of ship production with a particular quality in the production of battleships and cruisers. Most recently Stevid has been famed with replacing the old Catholic Class Super Dreadnoughts which are decades old with the new Sanguinious Class Super Dreadnought in which five of these vessels are cheaper and more powerful than the whole fleet of Catholic Class ships. Even more recently is Stevid’s ascension up the naval super power totem pole with the completion of the country’s first Supercapital Ship which is even more powerful than any Super Dreadnought- only a small collection of countries possess the money or workforce to build such gargantuan ships with the economy suffering a cataclysmic breakdown. The Farseer Class is Stevid’s own version of the Supercapital class of vessels and joins the ranks of Sarzonia, Questers and Praetonia to name a few nations who own Supercapital ships.
The Royal Navy consists of ten fleets with six of them major ones and four “part-time” ones used usually for coastal defence duties but can be assembled into ready made task forces. The Fifth Fleet of the Royal Navy used to be the largest and most powerful fleet in the Royal navy before The Macabees fire nuclear tipped torpedoes into it’s home port of Portsmouth Harbour and obliterated almost all of the fleet and breaking the back of one of the Catholic Class SDNs that had escaped a previous battle undamaged while her sisters lay in dry docks all over the country being repaired. Currently the First Fleet is the largest and most powerful and is tasked with guarding the Otium Aqua Sea from the hordes of the Golden Throne. The First Fleet, along side Independent Hitmen naval allies, managed to fend off an enemy Kriegmarda from the Golden Throne from the Otium Aqua thus protecting it from further enemy attack. The First Fleet earned its stripes that day and returned victorious (to a point) to its home port in Rubet Island. The Second Fleet is the second most powerful after having been quickly mobilised to combat the threat posed by Kanami, Aqua Anu and Magic Sorcery, but after a small conflict resulting in a victory to the Royal Navy the Second Fleet withdrew back to Stevid to counter a new threat posed by Athiesism in the War of Golden Succession leaving Kanami free to bocker a ceasefire on par the request of Stevid and RedTide2. The Third Fleet is now the third most powerful in the Royal Navy (although the Fourth Fleet used to be) having been sent to the Athiesist Archipelago to wage war against the “reprobates” that dwell there.
The Third Fleet has won two major engagements in that particular campaign already but with severe losses to its own number. The Royal Navy of Stevid has, for the first time since the Battle of Otium Aqua Sea, met a tough and resistant opposition to its raw power on the seas. The final fleet worth of much mention is the Fourth Fleet which has had a very subdued role as far as Stevidian foreign policy is concerned. The Fourth Fleet defend the Eastern coastline of Stevid from any potential threats from that direction; however Stevid has managed to maintain peaceful relations with the countries east of its sea boarders throughout its history. Huzen Hagen ‘’(deceased)’’ was an extremely close ally of Stevid and both countries participated in a war together that saw the Royal Navy lose Type-23 Frigate HMS Rougebuck to enemy bombing, the war also saw the Forth Fleet in action with Huzen Hagen naval forces before nuclear weapons destroyed over half the allied navy and then almost all foreign cities of the target nation. Other nations such as New Empire and Psychotic Psychos have very good diplomatic relations with Stevid but no military aid and assistance pacts- this begs a common saying in parliament which is now tradition seeing as it is said so much in the monthly parliamentary address: “All is quiet on the Eastern front.”
The Royal Navy used to be Stevid’s ticket into the Organisation of Maritime Powers or the OMP.
His Majesty’s Royal Air Force
Military Compounds and Facilities
Compound Name: Camp Four Type: Military Prison Size (Acres): 600 acres (above ground), 800 acres sq. (Subterranean) Personnel (Military/Civilian): 6000 (Military), 1200 (Civilian) Accessibility: Fourteen Helipads, one airstrip, six railway platforms and three main road entrances Date Established: 15th December 1998 Date for Due Decommission: 1st January 2100
Overview and History of Camp Four
Very little is known about this military prison, attempts by the government to keep it top secret have been only partially successful and have had to admit its existence to the public. However the true nature of the prison has not been disclosed to the public, the masses have been told that such a prison exists and that it is a military prison holding approximately two hundred inmates for crimes committed against the state, the throne or high acts of criminal offences against the people of Stevid. Such an explanation goes down well with the population and has been widely accepted by the people spare the old thousand of conspiracy theorists saying that the government take away political and military prisons and perform untold and horrific acts to them in a base underground beneath the base. Of course the government and the population as usual dismiss these rumours as stupid nonsense and just a sly way of trying to bring down a perfectly decent government.
Horrifyingly enough is fact that for once the conspiracy theorists are quite correct in their statements even though they have no conclusive proof of the existence of an underground prison. The prison is not secret above ground but is below which will be explained later but the original communist government that used to rule the country did intend the area around Camp Four is situated to be gulag for political prisoners with the Camp being the run down and disgusting prison that usually accompanies the gulags’ digging pits. It soon became what the government wanted it to be also became something else, the rock below the prison was easy to excavate and mine and so work began on an underground base extension to the prison that would be large and deeper than the original prison on the surface. Extra cells would be inserted to hold hundreds of thousands of prisoners but also medical laboratories. Stevid is no longer a fan of biological and chemical weaponry because of the impact to the environment but during the communist rule things where vastly different. The prisoners, especially religious Satanists, would be dragged down further underground and would be decontaminated before being handed over to medical and military scientists for them to test newly developed biological weapons.
Usually in “Herds” of ten or twelve, the prisoners would be either tested as a group or individually with new pathogens, diseases and chemicals to see the effect on the human mind and body. Resistance just led to more visits to the labs and further testing. The prisoners were not meant to be killed (or less they would lose one of the human guinea pigs) but rather to survive the infection long enough for it to spread to other people without showing too many signs of contamination. Prisoners infected would be then sent to another part of the base where the infected were put together in small shatter proof glass cages just big enough to take a medium sized man- there they would remain until called for again.
None of this has ever been seen or proven by any one and nor has it been leaked by anyone so far. It falls into the category of dark secrets the government still retains from the dark days of communism that the current government still utilises for its own “benefit”.
Current Usage
Much the same as the communist government although the testing over future biologic weapons is no longer performed- Stevid does not utilise such disgusting weapons of war unless absolutely necessary and even then it would be traditional chlorine and mustard gas attacks- no dirty bombs of the future. However this is not to say that new and extremely lethal biological and chemical agents are not tested on “patients” in the subterranean part of Camp Four.
If the government were to ever be caught doing this by the public, the excuse would be: “It is for your own protection and health”. One can not deny the incredible cures for some of the most horrific diseases and conditions have been found quickly and recently by the health departments around the country. Universities finding cures for some of the many cancers one can develop and even cures for some of the most dangerous biological weapons used by enemies of Stevid. In truth some universities find the cures but more often than not it is bases like Camp Four that find the cures through deliberate human contamination and testing. The patients are given a dosage of some kind of chemical weapon designed to attack the heart of a major population centre (e.g. a capital city) and infect the population with some sort of bacterium or virus that does not instantly kill but can easily be transmitted and then kills forty-eight or twenty-four hours after the initial contamination. Such a weapon could wipe out the population of an entire country if used effectively unless a cure is found which scientists at Camp Four are tasked on doing. The patient will then develop symptoms and the scientists will monitor the patient’s condition, tracking the virus to see which cells and parts of the body it attacks first before the eventual death. The first three subjects usually die for researching purposes but the next four or five will be given test antidotes and pathogens that are most likely to stem the virus’ attack or wipe it out completely before it mutates. Patients may die but more often than not they survive because of the research completed by controlled infections. Side effects are monitored and acted upon until the perfect vaccine is created.
Through these means of vaccinations and biological testing, new and even more deadly diseases can be born accidentally and sometimes with fatal consequences. An out break of a genetically modified version of the Black Death escaped controlled contamination cells and got out into the ventilation system beyond contaminator control and killed approximately seventeen hundred subjects in the cells in the underground part of the base. It is even rumoured in the government, who still do not fully know of what happened, that a way of reanimating dead corpses back to life was accidentally discovered through a side effect of a vaccine that actually mutated with the virus they were attempting kill. Effects are presumed to be horrific if not catastrophic but the incident was contained and never heard of again. A vaccine is rumoured to exist through more testing.
The vaccine is then tested again and again until it is modified to such a degree that is utterly perfect, some are tested so much and so well the antibodies the vaccine creates can adapt to possible virus mutations if and when it occurs. Per disease and biological/chemical weapon tested in Camp Four, on average six patients die. On bad days up to two hundred can die from a particularly deadly and resilient pathogen but all in a controlled way so that any chance of outside contamination is nailed down to a bare minimum. All bodies are instantly incinerated and the energy produced goes into powering the Camp- nothing goes to waste.
Aside weapons testing, medical experiments on certain individuals with distinct “qualities” are also performed under controlled conditions. People naturally born with weird and utterly insane abnormalities are experimented on. This is done in a separate part of the underground base and is known as the “Noah’s Ark Wing”. Such circumstances of gross human mutation demand that the medical scientists need two specimens to complete their medical evaluation of the subjects. One dead and one very much alive is especially needed while more can be used in weapons testing. The dead subjects are dissected and examined by top military or civilian exobiologists while the live specimens are examined by doctors and physicians as well as neurologists and brain experts. This eventually profiles the mutation and designates the subject and the species it has thus created through procreation as an official human mutation.
An example of this is in the recent war against Kanami and the Southern Archipelago when Knights Templar raided a small island that led to the death of one child and physical assault of a young twenty-one year woman. Both were kidnapped and taken to Camp Four. They retain all the physical features of a human being but also have in their genetic make-up the genes of a cat thus making them half human and half animal and it shows. Both subjects had ears and eyes of a cat and also had a long coloured tail accompanying their usual human features of arms, legs and torso. This led to the species being official categorised and recognised by the Stevidian government as mutants of the human genetic code. How the mutation occurred is still unknown apart from the easiest ways of species transferring their genetic code- a cross breed between a human and a cat willingly is disgusting enough to imagine let alone comprehend. The live subject, after torture, questioning and thorough testing was gassed in the Camp’s biologic weapons testing policy.
Inmate Arrival and Transportation
The base is well equipped and usually receives inmates that have committed truly brutal crimes however these are usually kept above ground where the normal prison and military compound is. Traitors and criminals against the state are taken below. But most of the inmates and subjects arrive by train from the main four cities in Stevid: Stevid Capita, Milton, Northampton and Sunderland- all of which have a separate railway line of two tracks that lead to the station platforms of Camp Four. It is a military/national security line and the platforms at the subsequent civilian stations are totally off limits to the public. Camp Four has four above ground railway platforms where subjects and prisoners are transported to and two subterranean platforms where the most sensitive subjects are taken directly to the base below ground. The check point gate just below the entrance into the tunnel is course secret and heavily guarded both outside and at the station inside. Trains are not regular and most spend their time back in the civilian sidings by the major cities but never usually in full view to the public.
Fourteen helipads are present above ground for quick insertion of troops or quick evacuation if a biological emergency is declared and pathogen escapes to the above ground section of Camp Four and military and civilian personnel are needed to be removed- inmates are left. The pads are used mostly for troop and civilian shift rotation or replenishment of supplies. A small runway is also used to the same effect but is mainly used for important visitors like military officers of general status, politicians and religious figureheads.
Finally there are three main road entrances into the base. These are used by the military only, side from civilian doctors who live nearby, and are heavily guarded by His Majesty’s Territorial Army. Tanks are present in small numbers and likewise with aircraft and helicopters but troops hold a significant presence. The main gates usually let in trucks that deliver supplies to the base such as food or replacement personnel but never to the underground base. All supplies and personnel bound for that part of the Camp are brought in by train and have to have the strictest of clearances to get that far in.
