Imperial Armed Forces

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Structure

Supreme Commander

The supreme commander of Excalbia’s armed forces is the Emperor. Routinely, the Emperor will exercise this authority through the Imperial Chancellor and the Minister of Defense. In the event of that the Emperor is indisposed or unable to communicate with military command, the Imperial Chancellor may act in his behalf.

Command Structure

The Minister of Defense sits atop the civilian command structure of the military. Under the Constitution, the military is strictly subordinate to civilian authority. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff is the Empire’s senior military officer. Below the Chief of Staff, are the Chief of Imperial Naval Operations, the Chief of the Imperial Army Staff and the Chief of the Imperial Air Force Staff. Traditionally, the Chief of Imperial Naval Operations has also served as the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

21st Century Modernisation

In the early 21st century, the Excalbian Imperial Navy implemented an aggressive expansion and modernisation programme. Excalbia's Mark V Shipbuilding Programme put the Imperial Navy on the forefront of naval technology and has been the key to Excalbia's national defence. In 2014, the Imperial Navy announced a significant upgrade to the Mark V ships and the introduction of new ship classes. Some refer to this upgrade as the Mark VI Programme.

Naval Technology

All the ships of the Mark V program boast lightweight foamed alloy construction, powerful and silent modular integrated electric drives and impressive stealth capabilities. Most are notable for the use of trimaran and catamaran hulls.

The most versatile and common Mark V ship class was the Wraith-class Missile Attack Boat, designed to operate both on the high seas and coastal waters, including rivers. The stealth catamaran ship carries over 200 vertical launch modular missile cell. This allowed a mix-and-match approach to the missile complement, ranging from anti-aircraft missiles to cruise missiles to ship-killers. As with all Mark V and Mark VI ships, the missiles are individually controlled by the DAIN computer system (see below).

Beginning with the Mark VI, Excalbian warships were equipped with magnetic particle weapon, based on the Crimson Star weapon developed by the Varessan Commonwealth, and deployed by the Upper Virginian Air Force in its coup against General Altman (see below).

An Imperial Navy Wraith-class Missile Attack Boat

An Imperial Navy Citadel-class Cruiser

An Imperial Navy Joshua II-class Destroyer

An Imperial Navy Majestic-class Carrier

DAIN

DAIN stands for '''Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Network'''. DAIN's creators like to say that the first DAIN was “born” in 1999 when Excalbian computer giant AzIntel developed a revolutionary supercomputer built around a series of interlinked decentralized parallel processors running in an artificially intelligence network. DAIN 1.0, later re-named DAIN One, achieved a speed of 23.15 teraflops, shattering the previous record of 2.15 teraflops.

Each successive DAIN has helped developed the next generation, pushing this new technology forward rapidly. DAIN has also become an invaluable research tool, helping the Holy Empire develop several other advances, especially in naval technology and immunology.

In 2002, AzIntel acquired bio-neural processor technology from Upper Virginia and combined it with DAIN technology to create DAIN Four. In early 2004, DAIN Five helped develop a treatment for a plague that was threatening New Rome in Pantocratoria.

The current version of DAIN, according to official sources, is DAIN Seven. The computer could originally perform over 600 petaflops; it was later upgraded to 4 exaflops. So far, the only DAINs available for sales to private research institutions and foreign institutions are DAIN Threes.

Hypersonic Aircraft

Excalbia employs a variety of hypersonic, suborbital aircraft developed in cooperation with the Dominion of Upper Virginia. The technical specifications of the aircraft are highly classified, but they are believed to use pulse detonation wave engines capable of speeds of Mach 6 and above. The pulse detonation wave engines use a supersonic detonation of premixed fuel under continuous volume to achieve greater fuel efficiency and much higher speeds per fuel weight than jet engines. When used at full speed and at lower altitudes, these engines can be marked by thunderous and disturbing atmospheric disturbances often described as "skyquakes." When used below 40,000 feet, the engine also produces a distinctive contrail pattern of rings around a thin contrail often described as "soap on a rope." At normal operating speeds and altitude, the aircrafts' stealth features are not impeded.

These high-flying aircraft are believed to be capable of skipping across the surface of the upper atmosphere like a stone across the surface of a lake. Several are equipped with Crimson Star (see below) while others carry a range of missiles, projectile weapons and bombs, incuding the Janaskeps V satellite and AI-controlled missile and the Tevuakmens III satellite and AI-guided bomb. Known hypersonic aircraft include the FX-9 and FX-11 fighters, the BX-10 bomber and the FX-12 carrier-based naval fighter, which was jointly developed with Knootoss. For more information on the development of the FX-12 see this article

X-12 Western Atlantic Joint Strike Fighter

by The Free Republic of Knootoss

X-12 Western Atlantic Joint Strike Fighter

MJ212 Atlas operating along the Knootian coast

Variants	MJ212 Atlas (KNOMA) J212 Occident (KLUMA) EOJ212 Pulsar (Electronic Warfare)
Engines	Twin UVNAC Pulse-Detonation Wave Engines
Maximum speed	2,200 kmh (1,367 mph) Mach 1.8
Service ceiling	15,000 m (50,000 ft)
Range	2.600 km (1.615 miles)
Combat radius	1.300 km (807 miles)
Armament	Internal Bay Compatible with missiles and Crimson Star MPW.
Length	1691 centimeters
Electronics	Lichtenburg Avionics LAAN12S AESA fire-control radar SC CAESAR MMI Interface or AzIntel’s DAIN AI systems Electronic Warfare suite

The X-12 Western Atlantic Joint Strike Fighter is a hypersonic, multirole naval strike fighter capable of carrying out strategic and tactical bombing missions, and engaging in air supremacy operations against hostile aircraft.

It is used by the Imperial navy of Excalbia and the KNOMA, the navy of Knootoss. It was offered to the Pantocratorian Imperial Navy and the Caldan Royal Navy of The Resurgent Dream prior to termination of joint cooperation, after the Mittelmeer Crisis.

Variants

The Knootian naval (KNOMA) variant of the X-12 is known as the MJ212 Atlas It is virtually identical to the prototype, but uses a CAESAR MMI Interface instead of AzIntel’s DAIN AI systems. Following the breakdown of joint development in the wake of the Mittelmeer crisis, the internal components and software of the Atlas have diverged further in various minor ways, as the development and upgrade cycles for the planes in Excalbia and the planes in Knootoss were separated.

During its 2012-2015 production run, the KLUMA, the Knootian air force, commissioned a variant that was locally classified as the J212 Occident, a simpler design that lacked some of the modifications that made the Atlas carrier capable. The J212 Occident remains in service in the KLUMA as of 2023, and is usually deployed in places that require relatively short runways, or which have smaller hangars, such as the Knootian Gulf Islands.

An Electronic Warfare variant, the EOJ212 Pulsar continues to serve in both the Knootian navy and its air force as of 2023.

Development

When news of the development program reached the press, there was much speculation about the potential capabilities of the aircraft. According to Sea Power Weekly the plane might be capable of flying at around Mach 10 and reaching extreme altitudes with its pulse-detonation wave engines. It was also speculated that it might use "Crimson Star", a Varessan-developed magnetic particle weapon.

The machines that ended up in the service of the participating countries' armed forces had more conservative 'hard' specifications, flying at more conventional speeds and sporting more conventional armaments. While the Twin UVNAC Pulse-Detonation Wave Engines manufactured by Upper Virginia’s National AeroDefence Corporation were undoubtedly more efficient than anything previously seen in the Knootian navy and air force, lower maximum speeds were necessary to preserve the integrity of the composite frame and to prevent its stealth coating from melting.

A frame able to withstand the superior speed of the Excalbian X9 and X-10 would need to rely on titanium alloys, which would compromise the aircrafts’ weight and stealth. Instead, a slower machine with a foamed carbon alloy skin over a carbon nanotube frame was built using proprietary technologies of Excalbia’s New Boston Shipbuilding, blended with graphene composites and Metal Matrix Composites (MMC) as well as Low Observation Paints (LOP) and Anti-thermal/IR coatings.

These compromises allowed for more attention to 'soft factors’, such as pilot comfort and situational awareness, many of which were developed by Cymric Aeronautics (CA), the Knootian lead industry partner with other Knootian businesses as subcontractors. While Excalbian fighters would use AzIntel’s DAIN AI systems, the Knootian Armed Forces would come to rely on the SuperComputer CAESAR MMI Interface, which brings together various body sensor inputs from the pilot suit and ABVA Smart Helmet such as eyeball tracking, with other technologies such as 3D surround sound squad radio, voice activation, augmented reality and predictive algorithms.

Size and stealth requirements required a remodelling of the Crimson Star weapon, a charged particle beam weapon that uses magnetic fields to accelerate charged pairs of particles to the speed of light. Its size requirements led engineers to develop a version of the weapon that fits in the internal bay, where it may replace a load-out of missiles. The improved Crimson Star developed for the X-12 features a short recharge rate of fractions of second and much greater firing range - theoretically up to 200 km as opposed to the proven range of 5 km. When not equipped with this weapon, the aircraft is compatible with a suite of Lichtenburg Avionics (LA) and Nimrod BV missiles and their Excalbian equivalents.

The strike fighter was brought into Excalbian and Knootian service on March 25th 2012, and described as "an example of successful cooperation between Western Atlantic powers, to fundamentally enhance the long-term security of the region in the face of emerging dangers." It received a mixed welcome in Knootian politics. Some parties criticised the high development costs of the project.

Most of the Knootian variants were produced between 2012 and 2015 on sites formerly dedicated to the Vuurhaag interceptor. A review of developments in the Knootian Defence Force, 2012-2015 looked back with a critical eye. It recognised that an inability to establish air superiority over the entirety of the battlefield was one of the Iesus wars’ major challenges, as the loyalist air force and the pervasive nature of ground-based anti-air capability on both sides kept the skies would be contested for the duration of the conflict.

After the war there were two influential schools of thought within the Knootian military-industrial establishment: those in favour of incorporating radical (Excalbian) capabilities into air superiority fighters to prevent the recurrence of contested skies, and those who accepted contested skies as a distinct possibility in a conflict between major powers. The former group had pushed for the development of superior aircraft, culminating in the development of the X-12 WAJSF Hypersonic Strike Fighter.

According to the 2015 analysis, cost overruns, a severe lack of transparency and the untested nature of the X-12 had discredited the air superiority camp to some degree, and were associated with the resignation of the head of the air force as a consequence of political pressure. Critics pointed out that the preponderance of research funds had been spent on the air force with little to show for it in terms of derivative technologies. The X-12 was disparaged as a white elephant that could not be deployed in high-risk missions, or indeed on any significant scale.

The alternative was the ‘swarm doctrine’, whose proponents in the political-military-industrial triad favour the deployment of disposable ground-to-air missile platforms and cheap, specialised unmanned aerial vehicles as a replacement for expensive, manned, multirole platforms.

While the MJ212 Atlas variant of the X-12 remains vital to the KNOMA (the Knootian navy) as of 2023, the KLUMA (Knootian air force) swiftly moved to incorporate the existing technologies in a 'parallel programme' of exclusively Knootian industry partners, following the breakdown of active cooperation with the Excalbians in the wake of the Mittelmeer crisis. The result was the J215 Stormjager, a larger, dedicated air superiority fighter that cannot operate from carriers, but has twin seats and 6th generation networking capabilities, allowing it to link with accompanying UAVs that can carry additional ordnance to operate efficiently in strike roles, thus appeasing the ‘swarm doctrine’ camp.

Read dispatch

An Imperial Air Force FX-9

An Imperial Navy FX-12, developed in cooperation with Knootoss

An Imperial Air Force BX-10

Crimson Star

Crimson Star was originally developed by the Commonwealth of Varessa for the Upper Virginian Air Force. In 2022, Excalbia and Upper Virginia introduced Crimson Star 2.0.

Crimson Star 2.0 is an improved charged particle beam weapon that uses magnetic fields to accelerate charged pairs of particles to the speed of light. Advantages to the Crimson Start 2.0 include a beam velocity that makes evasive maneuvers virtually impossible, nearly instantaneous contact with the target, high penetration and all weather capability. However, Crimson Star 2.0 has proven incapable of overcoming some of the limitations of its predecessor - namely size and power requirements. The original airframe-mounted Crimson Star traded its smaller size for longer recharge rates and greater beam dispersal. This requires that Crimson Star-equipped aircraft, whether Crimsons Star 1.0 or 2.0, to drop below their normal operating altitude to fire and endure a significant delay of several seconds before taking its next shot. These disadvantages have been eliminated in the naval version, which features a short recharge rate of fractions of second and much greater firing range - 200 km as opposed to 5 km in the airborne version. Air frames equipped with Crimson Star also have far less space for other weapons systems or fuel; however, the fuel carrying issue has been resolved by pairing it with the highly efficient pulse detonation wave engine.

The Excalbian FX-9 employs Crimson Star 2.0, as to several classes of naval ships. Other Excalbian aircraft, including the FX-11 variant of the FX-9 use more conventional weapons, as described above.

Army Doctrine

Imperial Army doctrine emphasizes mobility and joint arms operations carried out in coordination with the air and sea elements. As such, almost every Excalbian unit is mechanized or incorporates a mechanized component. In developing its fighting vehicles, the Imperial Army has tended to prioritize speed and stealth over firepower; however, all of its vehicles tend to be equipped with a combination of offensive weapons that may include heavy caliber machine guns, rockets or microwave emitters.

An Imperial Army Lynx Armored Scout Vehicle

An Imperial Army Wolf Mechanized Cavalry Vehicle

An Imperial Army Bear Armored Troop Vehicle

An Imperial Army Bull Moose Battle Tank

General Staff

The Imperial Navy

The Home Fleet

The Expeditionary Fleets

The Coast Guard and Reserves

The Imperial Marines

The Imperial Army

The Home Army

The Expeditionary Army

The Home Guard and Reserves

The Imperial Air Force

The Home Air Force

The Expeditionary Air Force

The Reserves