Rupeean Armed Forces

Part of the Uen Imperial Protectorate

Branches of the military -

Imperial Army - Land military, including landship fleets and atmospheric air forces.
Imperial Navy - Starfaring military. Also responsible for transorbital craft, including starfighters operating from ground bases.
Imperial Guard - Elite force entirely recruited from experienced Army or Navy personnel. Possesses its own armed forces in miniature, with an internal infantry, armoured corps, fighter command and small warship fleet. Responsible for protection of the royal family and for guarding major government centres.
Auxilia - Garrison, police, logistical, administrative, infrastructure-oriented and other second-line roles. Unfortunate persons stuffed into a uniform to avoid/escape unemployment usually end up in the Auxilia, paving roads or rebuilding moisture traps for their daily ration.
VDF - supported openly by successive Rupeean and Sestian governments but independent of either, the Vulpes Defence Force are a militarised wildlife control (or more often, monster hunting) organisation formed to protect civilian populations from the often very large and aggressive predators found on their homeworlds. While officially neutral, the VDF is both a source of national prestige and valuable recruiting ground for highly trained and experienced combat personnel.

Composition

Equipment

The design of naval equipment emphasises survivability, mobility and endurance over raw firepower. As a side effect, this often leads to outsized craft, equipment and subsystems for their intended role. Ground equipment emphasises ruggedness and reliability in frequent use, with a doctrinal emphasis on first-shot advantage over volume of fire.
The prototyping process often involves providing target specifications to open competition among manufacturers in UIP territory. The most suitable entrant is then purchased at the patent or prototype stage by the Imperial government, which licences the original manufacturer (among others) to finally design the equipment.
Specialist equipment, particularly for special forces, are often brought to the prototype stage and then field-tested extensively by the VDF. The prototypes in VDF use are often replaced with later versions free of charge, as a reward for suffering the flaws of the incomplete model. For their part, VDF Rangers are happy to get the new toys first.

Weaponry

General purpose - see Rupeean Technology

Vehicles

Rupeean ships are generally named in English, in an attempt to better associate themselves with the galactic community at large.
Storm cruiser
Falchion class heavy cruiser (780m) - Particle cannon cruiser
Rain cruiser
Sabre class light cruiser (780m) - Rail missile cruiser
Oasis cruiser
Estoc class auxiliary cruiser (780m) - repair, rearm, recovery and PD
Destroyer
Rubywine class destroyer (500m) -missile and torpedo platform
Escort frigate
Able class(A-class) frigate -Anti-missile/anti-fighter
Scout frigate
Borderer class picket frigate (350m) -Carrier/missile frigate
Corvette
Candii class minelayer (150m) -Anti-capital BPL mines
Gunship
Assiim T -Micromissile heavy fighter
Bomber
Assiim OL -BPL mine/bomb delivery
Fighter
Assiim R -Heavy railgun fighter
Sparhawk VIII -spinal high-dV rail missile launcher
Defense platform
Duty class tractor-BPL array -minefield management station
Power Armour
Ankhar Armour - Multirole heavy infantry suit
Betkhar Armour - Heavy defensive warfare suit, heavily armoured
Genkhar Armour - Lightweight mobile warfare suit (for elite units and VDF response teams)

Tactics

Planetary combat is dominated by the landship and it’s associated blend of vehicular, airmobile and faux-naval strategy - carrier fleets extend ground control over vast tracts of terrain while roving squadrons of tracked cruisers contest objectives in short and deadly clashes. At the same time, a long and storied history of asymmetric infantry and mounted warfare still bears fruit. If there is terrain for a raiding force to disappear into, they might never be rooted out even with modern weapons and orbital support. In both doctrines, Rupeean strategy bears a distaste for attritional standing engagements.
Space combat is ultimately defined by construction strategy, and the UIP has available a navy formed entirely of large light cruisers and various frigates. Lacking any viable capital ship type to form a wall of battle with but over-endowed with high-endurance skirmishers, the Imperial Navy is trained in less direct methods. Commerce raiding, infrastructure raiding, minelaying, hit-and-fade attacks and the occasional daring ‘harbour raid’ are the main anticipated strategies. The long association of their homeworld with piracy has bred an aggressive and opportunistic edge into the naval officer corps, which contains more than a few ‘penitent’ pirates itself…
Rules of Engagement are normally fairly wide in scope, allowing free action against known and identified hostiles. Actions against civilian infrastructure, or which contain a significant risk of affecting civilians directly, require authorisation from the NavInt representative on scene. Direct attacks against civilians or cultural sites are prohibited, and authorisation is rare indeed.
WMDs - The use of indiscriminate weapons is a sore point for a civilisation that considers fertile or resource-rich land incredibly valuable, and customs established on Rupee Quay require the victor in any conflict to reclaim and help restore the territory of the defeated. In line with this cultural responsibility, the UIP is loath to use any chemical or radiological weapons that would win them custody of a blasted hellscape in the end. Such weapons exist, but they are understood to be the very last resort.

Overall training Level

Trained

Assumed Veterancy

Trained

Used by

• Uen Imperial Protectorate