House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion

by David Weber

  In addition, the Keyhole platform extends the sensor reach of the host ship, both with dedicated offboard arrays as well as with the ability to deploy outside the wedge and relay information while the ship has rolled against the threat axis.

  Finally, the platform not only replaces and enhances the traditional tethered decoy platform, mounting sophisticated jammers and ECM gear, but is very heavily equipped with point defense laser clusters of its own.

  Although no more than two can be carried by even the largest of ships, they are still cheaper to replace than an entire warship, and their heavy onboard array of point defense laser clusters not only allows them a degree of self-defense far in advance of any previous tethered EW platform in Manticoran service, but also contributes significantly to the defense of the deploying ship.

  While the Invictus is a new design, tested so far in only a few engagements, it is indisputably one of the most powerful and capable warships in existence.

  ARMED MERCHANT CRUISERS (AMC)

  While the Navy had long maintained the practice of installing defensive armament and sidewalls on its fast auxiliaries, the RMN had never operated Q-ships of any sort prior to Project Trojan Horse. Due to the mounting merchantship losses in Silesia resulting from the drawdown of forces in the Confederacy to replace losses on the Havenite front, BuShips and BuWeaps proposed to take a page out of the Havenite book and build auxiliary warships on essentially merchant hulls. The idea was to convert several of the RMN’s standard Caravan-class support vessels from the Joint Navy Military Transport Command into armed merchant cruisers by incorporating some of the new concepts in development. The AMCs would both allow operational testing of some of the WDB’s more radical new systems proposed and combat the growing piracy problem by deploying to the Confederacy as convoy escorts and independent patrol units.

  While Trojan Horse as a whole succeeded in protecting commerce in Silesia, it was even more successful as a proof of concept for both LAC and carrier operations as well the internal pod rails and deployment that helped paved the way for the first Medusa-class SD(P) in 1914 PD.

  Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser

  Mass: 7,352,000 tons

  Dimensions: 1199 × 200 × 185 m

  Acceleration: 190 G (1.863 kps²)

  80% Accel: 152 G (1.491 kps²)

  Broadside: 10M, 8G, 10CM, 10PD

  Fore: 6CM, 6PD

  Aft: 6MP, 8PD

  Missile Pods: 180

  LAC Bays: 12

  Number Built: 15

  Service Life: 1909–1920 PD

  The Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser was a testbed platform in many ways, built on the hull of the Caravan-class freighter used by Logistics Command for rear area supply.

  The armament of the Trojan class was unique at the time of construction. While the term “Armed Merchant Cruiser” belies the normal grade of weaponry found on a Q-ship, most of the examples seen in other navies are hybrid designs, able to carry limited cargo in addition to their disguised weaponry. BuShips decided to eliminate all cargo storage from the Trojan and use all of the volume freed up for a number of weapon systems, some more experimental than others.

  Conventional broadside and chase armament consisted of the sort of missile broadside one might find on a heavy cruiser, except that the weapons in question, both missile tubes and energy mounts, were all superdreadnought-grade installations. Bottlenecks in capital ship construction, coupled with a surplus of weapon system components provided the systems in question, though the nature of the building queues resulted in different units of the class carrying a different balance of missiles and beams. The most common configuration was the ten missile launchers and eight grasers carried by the lead ship, but other ships in the class had mixed beam armaments, all lasers, and in some cases fewer missile tubes and more beams.

  Unique to the Trojans at that time was an internal storage and deployment system for missile pods, making the Trojan the first ever pod-laying warship in service in any Navy. While outwardly similar to the more advanced system onboard the Medusa class, the prototype system had numerous inefficiencies and some outright dangerous design faults that were fixed in later generations.

  The second unique “weapon system” was the organic ability to launch a squadron of Series 282 advanced light attack craft from internal bays. While its ability to service and rearm the LACs was somewhat limited, the Trojan was also the galaxy’s first hyper-capable LAC-carrying warship.

  After the early successes of the first four units, the class went on to serve well in the Silesian Confederacy for over a decade. The follow-on units became a common sight throughout Silesian space, and even though pirate groups learned to recognize them, they still provided a powerful deterrent effect, especially once the merchant cartels began to introduce more new-build unmodified Caravan-class freighters into the area.

  While the Janacek Admiralty had written up plans to extend the class with an additional dozen units, those plans were scrapped with the onset of the Second Havenite War. With the need for manpower growing at an enormous pace, the Trojans were listed for disposal shortly thereafter, freeing up their overly large crews for the new construction starting to come off the building slips.

  The Royal Manticoran Marine Corps

  The Royal Manticoran Marine Corps was formally established in 1516 PD, but can trace its roots back to the Navy’s Fleet Marine Forces, first created in 1438 PD shortly after the initial skirmish with the Free Brotherhood. Part of the process of transforming the Navy from a primarily civil defense organization into a true military organization, the Fleet Marine Forces grew from the core of cross-trained naval personnel who formed the original boarding teams and shipboard security.

  Until the mid-seventeenth century, the Corps remained the only Kingdomwide armed service dedicated to ground or boarding combat. In 1665 PD, shortly after the Ranier War, a growing movement in Parliament called for a unified ground service encompassing both the newly created Army and Marines as a cost-efficiency measure. It made little sense, proponents argued, to maintain two separate forces, each with its own infrastructure needs and costs, when they performed so many overlapping roles and missions. While the new service was formally called the Royal Army due to the broad spectrum of official responsibilities the new service needed to meet, the majority of the senior officers came originally from the Corps. After a few generations, though, the drive to create “uniformity” in the name of efficiency became increasingly pronounced, eventually leading to much more emphasis being placed on planetary combat and less on the training in the shipboard duties like damage control and weapons crews which had always been part of the traditional Marine role. Increasingly, the Fleet found itself with soldiers assigned to its ships but not fully integrated into those ships’ operations, which increased manpower costs—without Marines trained in shipboard duties more spacers were inevitably required—and decreased efficiency. Eventually, the nature of the problem was recognized and the Marines reemerged as a separate organization intensively trained to perform both shipboard and planetary missions.

  Given the primacy of the RMN within the Star Empire, the RMMC has become the senior ground combat arm of the Star Empire. Originally tasked with providing boarding parties for naval units, the Corps’ responsibilities are currently defined as follows:

  1.Provide emergency landing parties, security parties, and boarding parties for the ship to which they are attached.

  2.Provide shipboard police under the authority of a warship’s master at arms.

  3.Man shipboard duty stations at GQ or battle stations.

  4.Provide garrisons, guards, and security detachments for Manticoran enclaves on other planets.

  The Royal Marines are not responsible for sustained planetary combat, atmospheric support, or the garrisoning of entire planets. Those missions are the purview of the Royal Manticoran Army, which is specifically trained and equipped for these tasks.

  Organization

  A Marine rifle squa
d consists of thirteen members: a sergeant, two corporals, six riflemen, two grenadiers, and two plasma gunners. The basic tactical element, a section, consists of a plasma gunner covered by three pulser-armed riflemen and a grenadier, commanded by a corporal, while the sergeant exercises overall command. A Marine heavy weapons squad consists of a sergeant, two corporals, and six to ten riflemen, depending on the weapon the squad operates. Heavy weapons squads are “pure function” units equipped with either heavy tripod-mounted plasma guns, tri-barrel pulsers, man-portable SAMs, or mortars.

  A Marine rifle platoon consists of a lieutenant, platoon sergeant, one clerk, and three rifle squads. In addition, each platoon has two assigned Navy Sick Berth Attendants (SBAs) to act as corpsmen. A heavy weapons platoon consists of a lieutenant, platoon sergeant, clerk, and four weapons squads (one of each type).

  A Marine rifle company consists of a captain, four staff lieutenants, one first sergeant, three clerks, and three rifle platoons. Each company also has two additional permanently attached Navy SBAs and is normally paired with one of its parent battalion’s heavy weapons platoons.

  The primary maneuver unit of the RMMC is the battalion, which typically consists of a lieutenant colonel, one major (the exec), a ten-man staff, one sergeant-major, one color sergeant (a leftover from the Corps’ earliest days now acting as the sergeant-major’s noncommissioned exec), ten noncommissioned clerks, three rifle companies, and one heavy weapons company. In addition, each battalion should have an attached Navy doctor, assisted by five SBAs.

  Approximately ten percent of the Corps’ total battalions are “assault” battalions (indicated by adding [A] to their unit designations) in which all personnel are equipped with battle armor. An assault battalion has no “heavy weapons” company per se. Instead, an additional “rifle company” in battle armor takes its place. In addition, an assault company or battalion has a somewhat higher “teeth-to-tail” ratio than a rifle company or battalion because the Corps’ attached Navy medical personnel are not trained in the use of battle armor and are not carried on the assault units’ Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E).

  The largest permanent standing unit is the regiment, consisting of a command section leading three battalions. Regiments may be organized into brigades or even divisions, although this was seldom practiced before the Havenite Wars. Brigades are currently used as administrative organizations when a large Marine force needs to be deployed to a distant fleet station such as the Talbott Quadrant or Silesia. Deployment of units above regimental strength in a combat zone remains rare for two reasons: modern weapons and equipment mean that larger units are seldom required, and when larger units are required, the situation is almost always one which should have been handed over to the Army in the first place.

  Equipment

  The standard shoulder arm of the RMMC is the M32 series grav pulse rifle in 4 x 37 mm caliber. The M32A5, introduced in 1918 PD, is the latest variant of this versatile weapon system. The M32 has two magazine wells, each of which will accommodate a single hundred-round magazine. Pulser darts come in two basic varieties: a solid, non-explosive, antipersonnel round and a superdense, explosive round designed for antiarmor or general suppressive fire. A shorter carbine version, the M19, is designed for shipboard use. The standard sidearm carried by officers is the M7 pulser and its short-barreled variant the M9.

  The M107 Plasma Rifle and M109 Plasma Carbine are the RMMC’s standard antiarmor weapons. The M107 uses twin M13 power cells, while the M109 carries only one. Each cell is good for three to twelve shots, depending on power settings. Maximum effective range in atmosphere is about four thousand meters, but bloom and energy bleed begin reducing terminal effect very rapidly beyond twenty-two hundred meters. In vacuum, maximum range is usually line of sight, with minimal energy bleed.

  Indirect supporting fire is provided by the M142 Grenade Launcher, a semi-automatic grav-launcher firing spin-stabilized 30mm grenades from forty-round belts or six-round box magazines. Maximum effective range is about eighteen hundred meters. The grenades can be fused for impact, delay, or air burst operation and the integrated targeting computer displays ranging data and kill zones on the scope or directly overlaid onto the Skinsuit HUD.

  Heavy weapons squads are equipped with a variety of crew-served weapons, including the M247 Heavy Tribarrel, M271 Plasma Cannon, and M223 Mortar among others. These are tripod-mounted weapons carried disassembled by squad members and deployed in minutes to provide support fire to maneuver units. Variants of the M247 and M271 exist for battle armor, carried be a single assault marine and drawing from the suit’s internal power cells.

  Standard combat gear for the RMMC includes the Mk7 Armored Skinsuit. The underlying structure of the Mk7 is identical to the Navy’s skinsuit, though the Marine variant trades comfort for protection and increased tactical features. For small arms protection, a series of armor plates covers the suit, providing adequate defense against light weaponry. The addition of weapon interlink ports allows the use of the helmet’s heads-up display (HUD) in combat. The skinsuit is used in boarding actions, shipboard duty, hostile environment engagements and combat drops, while lightweight unpowered body armor is worn at other times.

  Assault units are equipped with M21 Battle Armor, a combat suit with a powered exoskeleton and heavy armor plating, powered by internal power cells. The M21 Base Platform can be configured in a number of ways depending on mission requirements. In reconnaissance configuration, more power is stored at the expense of weapon loadouts, which increases endurance but leaves the trooper with nothing more than a standard pulse rifle, while in assault configuration, heavy weapons such as tribarrels and plasma cannon are carried.

  The RMMC is a pure infantry force, with no organic vehicle components other than their (Navy-operated) small craft. The two most commonly seen subtypes are the Mk30 “Condor II” Pinnace and the Mk17 Avenger Assault Shuttle, though some units still carry the older Marine-optimized Mk26 Skyhawk Pinnace. All three are capable of company-level drops as well as fire support.

  Aside from the dedicated Broadsword-class LCA and the new Kamerling class, interstellar transport was provided throughout the war by the aging Rorke’s Drift-class Fast Attack Transports and the Guadalcanal-class Heavy Assault Transports. With the drawdown of onboard marine complements due to the increased automation onboard Manticoran Warships, a design study was put in place in 1920 PD for a new class of Marine transport. Designed to attach to a fleet to provide a centralized Marine support unit, the as-yet unnamed LPX (Attack Transport, Experimental) can carry three regiments plus support on a large battlecruiser-sized hull, with enough active and passive defenses to protect itself as part of the fleet train, and sufficient small craft capacity to deploy a full regiment in a single wave.

  The Royal Manticoran Army

  The Royal Manticoran Army was formally established by King Roger Winton II in 1648 PD and is the youngest of the Star Empire’s three military services. Prior to that date, each planet in the Manticore system had its own Planetary Guard to provide for disaster relief, peacekeeping, and planetary security, but there was no perceived need for a Kingdomwide army.

  With the growing merchant fleet and responsibilities of the Royal Manticoran Navy in the years following the first transit of the Junction, the Star Kingdom began to look toward gathering a military that was capable of force projection in addition to its historical role of providing system security and defense. The Royal Army was established as part of that initiative, merging the three Planetary Guard forces into a single service and starting a research and construction program to develop the equipment and doctrine to fight a major ground war if required.

  The Army achieved two important “firsts” during the Ranier War: its first operational deployment and its first actual combat operations. The practical experience of several months of low-intensity combat in the Ranier System honed the skills the Army had developed through extensive training and wargaming. The Army’s good performance was one of the fact
ors cited to justify the century-long merger with the Royal Marines.

  The Army’s four primary mission roles are defined as follows:

  1.Provide the mechanized “muscle” for sustained planetary combat.

  2.Secure and maintain control of planetary surfaces and fixed ground defenses.

  3.Maintain the peace against uprisings or unrest when called to do so by the Government.

  4.Provide disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.

  It should be noted that, despite the equipment and training, the Royal Army has never in its history been called upon to fulfill its primary mission. Any force that holds undisputed control of the high orbitals can force a surrender or can defeat even a superior enemy ground force without risking its own units with few exceptions. For those exceptions, the Star Kingdom has built an Army capable of sustained planetary combat, but the capability has not been needed to date. Instead, the Army has been tasked with peacekeeping and garrison duties on over a dozen captured Havenite worlds. Often the first Manticoran any of their population met in person was a member of the Army, and its training as peacekeeping and local police forces has served them well in that role.

  Organization

  The Royal Army is primarily a mechanized force, consisting of regular, armored, and assault infantry units; armored units; engineering units; heavy ground defense units; and aerial units, including both atmospheric and trans-atmospheric fighters (sting ships). The Army uses the term “armored unit” to indicate a unit equipped with armored fighting vehicles, which range from relatively lightly armored but highly mobile skimmers and infantry fighting vehicles to heavy tanks, capable of standing up to heavy plasma fire. In the unusual eventuality of really heavy ground combat, the Army usually provides heavy vehicles support for the Marines or completely takes over from them in the sustained combat role.