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Hàromszék Ministry of Defense

Introduction

Where many nations have standing armies, Hàromszék has the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and the Air Recon & Rescue Service.   These forces are not intended to project "the national will" of Hàromszék elsewhere, rather their mission is protection of the territory, property, and persons of the nation.   This is not to say units do not venture outside our borders, nor does it imply they are less than a formidable fighting force.   Nations who deride our servicemen as "policemen" are those who have not seen them on manoeuvers or in action against smugglers or pirates.

Points of distinction are that these are small permanent forces, but immense reserves.   They have not dealt with enemy armies on the field since well before any serving soldier was born, yet they train with rigor, and their ranks do include a scattering of naturalized officers from other nations who have seen recent combat.   They are supplied with copious excellent equipment, and know how to maintain it fit for use.When they leave active service they keep their equipment and continue to practice with it.

A few other nations have similar philosophies about maintaining a ready reserve, yet none to the extent of Hàromszék.   Most homes have automatic weapons in the closet.   Commo officers have their equipment at home and in their vehicles as well.   Mess units function as concession stands for sports events and see action in disaster relief.   Air units are even in reserve, fully equipped.

Hz MoD service units are multiRepublic, multiethnic, and multilingual, but any one unit operates under a single language.   All crew/ battalion members/ staff need not be "native" or primary speakers of that common tongue, but they do have to test as thoroughly fluent.   As one progresses up the noncom and officer ranks, one must posess ever more language ability.   Commo personnel, even enlisted personnel, must posess fluency in all nine Republic languages and Ingallish.   Even in Hàromszék that's tough, so commo postings pay very well, and they're treated well.   Many senior service officials are current or former commo staff; since the incentives are good, there's a disproportionate number who reenlist repeatedly for long term careers.   For citizens who wish to learn additional languages, the military linguistics institutes do a very thorough and quick job of instilling fluency, both in Hàromszéki and outland languages.

Defense Doctrine

Hàromszék military doctrine is based more on the "swarm of hornets" model than on the "fewer, bigger, stronger" ideas that steer some nations toward battleships and nuclear aircraft carriers.

Take air units.   Since Hàromszéki goals don't include projecting force thousands of miles away, fighter aircraft don't need the stamina to fly fifteen hours with multiple refuelings just to reach a target.   Instead of one such "hawk", ARR can afford ten "wasps" -- nimble, fast, short-range one-man fighters based on a BD-5 or BD-9 chassis.   Such planes can be catapulted from the deck of a frigate or freighter, can launch from any piece of straight roadway, can even ride carrier-airships, hooked beneath or in internal hangers.   Some fly with parasail landing-rigs -- they may not immediately take off from a farmer's field, but their landing there won't be a crash either.   "Skyhanger barnstormers" can be equipped to rehook in flight, or land in internal bays.   Ordinance is modular; whole loaded units snap in in minutes, so many sorties can actually be flown per hour.

Best of all, small military planes are so inexpensive that like handguns and helmets, they an be issued to reservists.   Not only the aforementioned microjets, but plenty of "pleasure flight" aircraft, cropdusters, small passenger planes, and the like are scattered about the countryside in personal hangers.   No first strike at Hàromszék could be massive enough to wipe them all out.   In many cases, on an hour's notice, reserve pilots and crew can be in from the office or back from the factory, and in the air.   Yes, live armament is locked away in thousands of garages about the countryside.

Universal service

Hz military service is universal.   One year's service is required of all fit males sometime between nineteen and twenty-three years of age, and of certain females in that age range.   There's all sorts of exemptions, but they're not much abused.   Probably seventy percent of those qualified by age do wind up serving.   Any new parent (child less than three) or a mother of a child less than seven is deferred, until they no longer meet that exemption or until forty-five.   "Fit for service" is loosely defined, since modern military activities involve much that is doable by even quadriplegic ... programmers, blind ... phone / radio operators, deaf ... translators.   Other exemptions are much like the parental one - deferrals until no longer exempt or until forty-five years old.

Dispersed Reserve Corps

Pay, training, morale, and interest is all kept high enough that some continue into career service.   Once compulsory service is completed, former military active personnel are bumped into the reserves, where they remain until forty-five or until no longer fit to serve.   Soldiers keep the personal weapons and other equipment they were issued (even beyond the age of forty-five), until they can no longer pass periodic marksmanship or proficiency tests.   Ammo is available at corner markets, right between the bread and the beer.

Border Patrol reservists often drive SUV's or light trucks with - you guessed it: hard points for mounting machine guns, rockets, missiles, and the like.   Active-unit Border Patrol personnel are divided into the permanent corps and those destined for reserve duty.   The pre-reservists train for missions that look like traditional soldiering.   The long-term professional units are organized into commando units, SWAT-like outfits, marine, or airborne -- these are the elite guys.

The few armor units are near transportation hubs, since tanks aren't likely to make it all the way across the country in a hurry.   Still, a few are scattered around in the hands of their reservist crews, and others spend most of their time on railroad flatcars, ready to roll.  

  

Air Recon & Rescue

All ARR units are widely dispersed, not just the ARR Reserve Corps.   Rather than large air bases, the majority of flight personnel and equipment is hosted in small installations at municipal and private airports nationwide.  

ARR equipment looks like a flying museum to outland visitors used to the latest aviation technology.   We still use far more prop-driven equipment than most modern nations.   Indeed, what we fly in many cases used to fly for those nations -- we do not always melt down "scrap" purchased government-to-government, when useable. If it meets our in-border needs, we feel it's appropriate technology.   Our most up-to-date aero technology is that developed in Hàromszék - our famous lighter-than-air vessels.   They don't make good fighters, but they're admirable cargo carriers, radar and comm platforms, missile launchers, and aerial fighter carriers.

Hàromszéki commercial fixed-wing transport is modular on the inside -- it's reasonably simple to change a plane over from passengers to cargo, or for that matter to cruise missiles or airborne radar.   Such transport / passenger aircraft may be "on retainer" to ARR; subject to call-up during time of need.   ARR itself owns such craft for its own use.   HzCG and HzBP also own a number of such general-purpose aircraft, which are operated by ARR for their owners.   Coast Guard carrier units own their aircraft, which differ significantly from the base ARR microjet designs.   The flight personnel are ARR service units, though.

HzARR Airborne personnel are usually first picks for embassy service overseas. Embassy duty is a sought-after post, and calls for an additional regimen of training (protocol, host-nation customs, languages) above and beyond basic training, airborne school, and commando school.   Career personnel get these slots, not servicemen and women on a Reserve Corps track.

Coast Guard

Coast Guard units are equipped with river-size patrol boats, revenue, interdiction, and pursuit cutters, and a variety of frigate forms.   These units see more out-of-country duty than the other services, in a protective capacity for Hàromszéki commercial shipping.   Some commercial freight vessels are themselve "in reserve", lightly armed so as to be able to repel criminal attentions.   These may have provision for mounting more substantial arms -- air defense batteries and micro-carrier air support units.   Some nations object to even such borderline warships tying up in their ports, but even among some of those who officially disapprove, a blind eye is sometimes turned on what amounts to a general deterrent to piracy or seizure.

Coast Guard units are equipped with river-size patrol boats, revenue, interdiction, and pursuit cutters, and a variety of frigate forms.   These units see more out-of-country duty than the other services, in a protective capacity for Hz commercial shipping.   Some commercial freight vessels are themselve "in reserve", lightly armed so as to be able to repel criminal attentions.   These may have provision for mounting more substantial arms -- air defense batteries and micro- carrier air support units.   Some nations object to even such borderline warships tying up in their ports, but even among some of those who officially disapprove, a blind eye is sometimes turned on what amounts to a general deterrent to piracy or seizure.

The Hz Coast Guard actually does have a significant interdiction role.   Zîrkæan and Vetlandan "entrepreneurs" tend to see Hàromszék's complex government and long coastline as an opportunity for smuggling.   Much of the coast is inhospitable for port facilities, but not too wild for late-night small-cargo landings.   To their chagrin, most find out quickly that a complicated government doesn't equate to an inefficient Coast Guard.   interdiction cutters and revenue cutters are equipped with hydroacoustic and electronic search and ID equipment.   HzCG Riverine Service patrol boats are qualified for ocean service, and assist the larger vessels when necessary.

Coast Guard Escort Service is tasked with protecting Hàromszéki-flag shipping.   Their primary focus is outside the 200-mile economic zone; Guard squadrons operate within those limits. Escort duty varies from outright convoy service in areas experiencing epidemic piracy, to individual VIP vessel protection, to assistance with disaster relief operations or spacecraft recovery.   We do not operate spacecraft of our own, but spacefaring nations have on occasion asked for our help in retrieving errant splashdowns.

HzCG Riverine Service units perform all manner of policing, revenue enforcement, and rescue operations on Hàromszék's inland waterways.   Coast Guard Reserve personnel do not generally retain and operate vessels above the outboard motorboat size, rather they are assigned places among operational personnel on active vessels, and entire vessels from the Auxillary Command inventory.   Reserve personnel generally perform all HzCG duties on the small lakes of the nation.   Lake Bajostat, part-way up the Jakobrieka (itself as large as some provinces), has a dedicated flotilla of HzCG units.

Hàromszék Coast Guard
Guard 1 Squadron	3 missile frigates	1 carrier frigate	2 anti-sub corvettes	4 subs	10 pursuit cutters	22 patrol boats	4 search & rescue cutters
Guard 2 Squadron	3 missile frigates	1 carrier frigate	2 anti-sub corvettes	6 subs	10 pursuit cutters	20 patrol boats	4 search & rescue cutters
Guard 3 Squadron	2 missile frigates	2 carrier frigates		2 subs	12 interdiction cutters	10 patrol boats	5 search & rescue cutters
Guard 4 Squadron	2 missile frigates	2 carrier frigates	3 anti-sub corvettes	2 subs	12 interdiction cutters	12 patrol boats	5 search & rescue cutters
Escort Service	3 missile frigates	7 carrier frigates	4 anti-sub corvettes	7 subs	16 pursuit cutters	32 patrol boats	14 search & rescue cutters
North Revenue Squadron	1 missile frigate	1 carrier corvette		25 customs hovercraft	16 pursuit cutters	28 patrol boats	1 search & rescue cutter
South Revenue Squadron	2 missile frigates	1 carrier corvette		12 customs hovercraft	16 pursuit cutters	24 patrol boats	1 search & rescue cutter
Villemrieka Riverine Squadron	18 customs hovercraft		26 inland waterway tugs		19 pursuit cutters	48 patrol boats	19 search & rescue cutters
Jurajrieka Riverine Squadron			18 inland waterway tugs		10 pursuit cutters	35 patrol boats	15 search & rescue cutters
Binyammonrieka Riverine Squadron	38 customs hovercraft		4 inland waterway tugs		4 pursuit cutters	12 patrol boats	2 search & rescue cutters
Legfelsõ Jakobrieka Riverine Flotilla			5 inland waterway tugs		4 pursuit cutters	23 patrol boats	4 search & rescue cutters
Dolny Jakobrieka Riverine Squadron			12 inland waterway tugs		10 pursuit cutters	24 patrol boats	8 search & rescue cutters
Jakobrieka Revenue Squadron	29 customs hovercraft				16 pursuit cutters	65 patrol boats	2 search & rescue cutters
Bajostat Flotilla	9 customs hovercraft	1 carrier corvette			7 pursuit cutters	44 patrol boats	3 search & rescue cutters
Search & Rescue Fast Response Squadron	21 SAR hovercraft	46 SAR hydrofoil	4 carrier corvettes			4 patrol boats	22 SAR patrol boats
Auxillary Command	44 customs hovercraft	114 patrol hydrofoil	11 fast freighter / tankers	3 floating drydocks	5 mobile refit/ repair vessels	21 patrol boats	13 search & rescue cutters
Port Command	38 fireboats	29 oceangoing tugs	45 inland waterway tugs	16 supply barges		44 patrol boats	21 search & rescue cutters

  

Border Patrol

Hàromszéki Border Patrol units are of course concentrated along our borders, but their "policelike" duties do call for being stationed throughout the country.   As the province with the largest amount of federal property, the River District hosts more than the usual number of MoD units, Border Patrol included.   Elsewhere, Federal Park Rangers are a branch of HzBP, as are government smokejumpers and Search & Rescue Service personel.   Government facilities requiring guard service may contract for the use of HzBP units or private contractors (who are typically reserve personnel, but not on duty).

Frankly, none of our current borders need very much guarding. We are on good terms with all five of our neighbors.   All are patrolled, since our international goodwill does not extend to the private enterprise camp; smugglers, fugitives, underworld figures, and the like.   While visitors may see uniformed HzBP personnel manning border checkpoints, their presence is not obtrusive or threatening.   HzBP guards are quite often contracted for government-owned airport security, even accompanying some flights.   It is not considered proper to refer to these servicemen and servicewomen as "airborne", though.

Equipment for Border Patrol use may be either Hz MoD specified, new-purchase material, or other nations' surplus.   Hàromszék is constantly amazed but pleased at what is available on the Scandiawide surplus market.   We have agents and dealers around the globe looking for deals on scrap materials in the first place, for recycling, resmelting, or reuse, and when they come across military hardware, the Hz MoD is notified.   The Ministry of Defense has a rather large portion of its budget unallocated - such surplus deals often have to be closed in cash, on the spot, and typical military procurement cycles of six months to six years just won't do.   Instead of planning beforehand, the federal legislature's military and finance committees simply insist on scrupulous accounting after the fact.