Solomani Marines/Army TO&E

[Golan2072]

The current Solomani sentiment on these boards have made me think about the Solomani military forces and their way of organization. Alot was written about the Imperial and Zhodani forces, but very little was written about the Solomani. From AM6: Solomani I've gleamed the following facts:

1) "The Solomani Confederation also uses its armed forces to maintain domestic tranquility. They enforce the laws, suppress dissidents, and maintain the peace."

2) "The armed forces of the Solomani Confederation are divided into the Army and the Navy."

3) "The Navy also handles scouting, message transmission, and mapping functions which are performed in the Imperium by the Scout Service."

4) "A subforce within the Navy is the Confederation Marines, used primarily as a rapid reaction force and for boardings."

5) "The Confederation also maintains a reserve
force: the Home Guard, with units raised on all of the Confederation's worlds."

6) "The Home Guard is divided into two forces: the Navy Home Guard and the Army Home Guard. The Confederation Army and Navy provide most of the administration and budget support for the Home Guard on the worlds within the Confederation. Army and Marine veterans join the Army Home Guard. Merchants join the Navy Home Guard... Home Guard members are liable for activation by the Solomani military for missions or assignments."

Other than that, Striker mensions that they are not very good with Gravitics.

I'd like to develop the Solomani military structure, especially the Marines - a TL14 force assigned for rapid response from the boards of Solomani Navy ships. I'd also like to keep things interesting by making it different from the Imperial Marines (and not just by TL). My initial idea was to use Russian organizational practices; the other military with a Solomani-style flavor is the Israeli Defence Force, but its organized in a mostly British style, which is not too different from the Imperial one.

 

[Maladominus]

Other than that, Striker mensions that they are not very good with Gravitics.

This is mentioned in many places outside of Striker. The fact is that in canon OTU, the Solomani Confederation (altho at TL14 in general) is said to lag behind in gravitic technology. According to Book8 (Robots), Solomani grav technology is as much as 2 to 3 tech levels behind their Imperial counterparts. Solomani based grav equipment is more expensive and only has 80% of the output/efficiency of the equivalent Imperial.

In fact, I recently created an LBB8 design for a SolSec robot. And true to the Solomani Confederation, my SolSec security bot is making do with air-cushion (hovercraft) technology for locomotion.

Also, when I received my copy of DGP's "101 Vehicles", I noticed something there. The book lists several Solomani high-tech vehicles, but not a single one of them are grav-based!!!! The book lists a Solomani Main Battle Tank. Guess what? It aint no grav tank. It's a tracked land lubber tank. This model of tank was said to be the front-line defense used against the Imperium's invasion forces in the Solomani Rim War.

Then the same book (101 Vehicles) also lists a commonly-used light Solomani military recon vehicle. Is it a neato grav bike? Nope! But it's a neat looking Air-Cushion hoversled/scooter of some type. And it mounts a light forward-firing gun. =)

Before you start arming your Solomani forces, keep these limitations in mind.

And lastly.... I do not want to give the impression that the Solomani Confeds never use grav vehicles. In fact, they have a very very awesome Grav-based G-carrier featured in DGP's Solomani & Aslan: the Confederation Marine's beloved Holy Wind Combat Lander. This thing kicks ass! It's well armored, it sports a plasma canon, and has good EM masking which gives it ability for covert troop drops. It's also very fast at top acceleration of 2.6Gs. It's a well designed vehicle for Confed Marines doing planetary invasions.

 

[Jame]

There's a Solly vehicle in GT: Ground Forces which, IIRC, is grav-based. I'll edit this post with the name and page reference when I get to looking it up.

 

[Golan2072]

I think the Solomani would use Grav vehicles in a similar role filled IRL (i.e. late TL7 Terra) by aircraft/helicopters; the Marine G-Carrier mentioned in Solomani and Aslan (which I don't have), as described by Maladominus, is the equivalent of a heavy "airborne cavalry" helicopter with armor and a big energy weapon added. So you'll have Grav-"helicopters" for the Marines, grav-attack-gunships, but tracked and wheeled vehicles for most of the Army. Oh, and an Aliens-style APC for the army/less well equipped marines

Other than that, what would be their organizational style?

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:

Other than that, what would be their organizational style?

Their organizational style would probably be closely tied to their military doctrine. Remember the canon term "Massed Solomani Army"?

 

[Golan2072]

Care to elaborate the doctrine?

 

[Golan2072]

I think I'll split the forces into four types - the Marines, the Drop Troops, the Planetary Armies and the Home Guard.

The Marines and Drop Troops (as well as smaller SpecForce units) are organized and equipped by the central government and serves it directly; the Planetary Armies and the Home Guard are organized and funded by the planetary governments are are, generally speaking, loyal to the local authority and the locally-dominant Party faction.

Marines are TL14 Mechanized Infantry, wearing Battledress and armed with Gauss Rifles (and underbarrel RAM grenade launchers) with one FGMP-14 per fireteam; they ride TL14 G-Carriers, a rare vehicle in the SolConfed. They are used mostly as ship troops but are also equipped (with G-Carriers and Gunboats) for planetary assaults if the ship's CO has need of it. They are a Long Service force.

Drop Troops TL14, wear Battledresses and are typically armed with FGMP-14s. They don't use G-Carriers; they use fast and agile armored Air/Rafts instead when nescery (sp?) but typically fight on foot. They are high-firepower shock troops who spreahead planetary assaults.

Planetary Armies are forces appropriate to their respective planetary TLs. While the Central Command has, in theory, full command of these Armies, in practice these Armies are loyal to the local government and the locally-dominant Party faction. Anyway, most Solomani worlds have relatively big military budgets and thus relatively large and well-equipped armies for their TLs.

Home Guards are local militias; they are typically loyal to the local government, but since parts of their officer corps are veterans of the more centralized forces, they are, on one hand, typically more varied in their political outlook , but on the other hand more loyal to the central government than the Planetary Armies. Home Guards are typically equipped with older military equipment and have on avarage, lower firepower than the Planetary Armies.

 

[Whipsnade]

2-4601,

All this meshes pretty well with Solomani & Aslan. In the Confederation, the number of pure 'Combined Army' units is relatively small. The Combined Army helps member polity forces with budgets, training, procurement, and so on. Of course, just how much the Combined Army helps and just how 'close' Confederation and member forces are operationally depends on just how well the Confederation and the member polity get along.

S&A even flatly states that the Confederation accepts 'loaned' units from various confederation members for internal dissident suppression campaigns. There's supposedly a 57th Century Boer-style member polity complete with apartheid and peons that enthusiastically 'volunteers' for such missions. In this manner it 'buys' the political capital it needs to shield its internal politics from Confederation scrutiny; i.e. the old "Our Bastards" realpolitik argument.

Another thing to remember is that Confederation member polities are often multi-system polities. Unlike the Imperium, which prefers single worlds (plus a scattering of colonies), the Confederation has large, multi-world polities within it. According to S&A some dominate multiple subsectors. Look at the Rim's Vegan Autonomous Region for an example, the Confederation is made of up many of those.

As for doctrine, because each member polity has it's own armed forces I believe you'll see all sorts of doctrines. One polity will have a Swiss system, another a mass conscript army, another a small professional AirLand battle system, etc.

Doctrine in purely Confederation units will lean towards all the various "More Bang For The Buck" models. The Combined Army is relatively small and relies on member polity forces for any mass, so you'll see a lot of elite-style formations; raiders, spec-ops, drop troops, marines, pro-for, and so forth.

Combined Army forces will have set TO&Es, high morale, and uniform training. Member polity armies will be a grab bag. You'll be able to justify any TO&E, varied morale, and any kind of training levels.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Border Reiver]

I heartedly agree with Bill above but will also add that all in all the Confederation is even more likely to send cadres out to member polities in and effort to achieve some level of standardisation in tactical doctrine.

 

[jwcarroll60]

Sort of like advisors, hey? Makes parts of the Solomani Confederation ripe for the kinds of scenarios one could find in a third world setting.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Another thing to remember is that Confederation member polities are often multi-system polities. Unlike the Imperium, which prefers single worlds (plus a scattering of colonies), the Confederation has large, multi-world polities within it. According to S&A some dominate multiple subsectors. Look at the Rim's Vegan Autonomous Region for an example, the Confederation is made of up many of those.

So my Unity of Gaia milieu (i.e. post-rebellion Rim with the Virus ommited and Ct rules used, maybe T20 once I'll have money to buy them) would fit right in; the Rim Civil War that began in the Hard Times had the Solomani Confederacy split along SolParty faction lines, with the Pan-Sophonists/Solidariti faction controlling about two subsectors around Sol, the Hardliners controlling Home and a few subsectors, Sacramuoch (sp?) being the center of an even worse Hardliner pocket empire, the Vegans having a fully independent state (with relatively good relations with the Pan-Sophonists) and the middle-ground/pragmaticists controlling a few subsectors in the Diaspora (or was it Old Expanses? corward-trailing Solomani fleets reached it in the Rebellion) with the remnants of a fleet.