Royal Ordnance Factory Lichkeep

Royal Ordnance Factory Lichkeep (IDB-1), a major Shirerithian firearms manufacturing company established in Lichkeep (Imperial County).

History

The Royal Ordnance Factory Lichkeep (ROFL) is a Shirerithian munitions and small arms complex located in the city of Lichkeep, a part of the Imperial County. The royal refers to patronage that was sought, but never quite received, from the Lich-Queens prior to their final disintegration in the mid to late 1640s.

Ordnance manufacturing in the Imperial Republic had traditionally been a haphazard affair, relying on enthusiastic amateurs in primitive machine workshops replicating antique weapons patterns released periodically from the armouries of Raynor's Keep as well as the quiet appropriation, by purchase, emulation or outright theft, of foreign designs.

The Royal Ordnance Factories had been conceived of at the commencement of Thorgils Tarjeisson's tenure as Minister of Military Affairs as a way to encourage greater participation by the then three extant Imperial States (Elwynn, Goldshire and Lichbrook) in the collective defence of the Imperial Republic. The Lichkeep site, owing to its proximity to the Imperial Capital, was the only one to pass the stage of the breaking-ground ceremony in 1636, and was then promptly delayed by the discovery that the site was situated upon brassicosis contaminated marshland. Following thorough drainage and remediation the site finally opened in 1643, and began production in early 1645 following the conclusion of the Year of the Four Kaisers.

Efforts to open a second factory in Goldshire had been frustrated by the recurring alternating bouts of civil war and Elwynnese occupation whilst the salesman dispatched to Elwynn had been so depressed by the contrived and unrelenting pomp and extravaganza he had encountered on the road north that he had instead elected to hang himself from an elm tree that overgrew a neglected byway rather than continue the journey to Eliria.

As with so many things, the exact ownership status of the ROFL had been left unclear by the Kalirion Fracture of 1672 AN. Nonetheless, by virtue of remaining within the bounds of the Imperial County, it was at least available to the slowly recovering regime of Kaiseress Salome. ROFL would indeed be the first entity to be officially designated as an Imperial Design Bureau, one of the government-sponsored design offices commissioned by the Imperial Government for the development of advanced technology, especially for military application.

The primary task of the ROFL would be the development of a service rifle to replace the M1651 bolt action rifle and the chaotic collection of semi-automatic carbines left in the imperial arsenals after the Fracture. This ultimately would lead to the development of the OL Pattern M1718, a battle rifle chambered for the 7.62×67mmB round. ROFL's financial security during these years would be assured by the NINE and SHIP programmes of the First Thuylemans Government, albeit at the cost of reconfiguring the ROFL into a public-private partnership.

Former product Range

• Small Arms
  • M14 Fragmentation Hand Grenade
  • M15 White Phosphorus Anti-Lich Grenade
  • M16 Mustard Gas Anti-Singer Grenade
  • M18 Red Smoke Hand Grenade
  • M1610 7.9mm Rifle (Semi-Automatic)]
• Medium and Heavy Weapons
  • Wren 7.62mm LMG
  • Polybolos .50 HMG
  • Tankgewehr 13.2 mm Rifle (Anti-Materiel)
  • Lobgun Hornet Recoilless Rifle (Anti-Tank)
  • Waspsting Man-portable Air Defence System
    • Waspsting (missile)
  • 82mm Mortar