Maritime Armada

This article or section is a work in progress. The information below may be incomplete, outdated, or subject to change.

Maritime Armada

Emblem of the Maritime Armada
Founded	1679 AN
Type	Navy
Role	High Seas Fleet
Headquarters	Redquill, Neridia (Natopia)
Part of	Raspur Pact
Size	As of 1717 AN: 17 battleships 10 arsenal ships 29 missile cruisers
Motto(s)	Semper vicit mari
Former Deployments	Operation Dyre-Storm 87 Second Elwynnese Civil War Florian invasion of Port Balaine

The Maritime Armada is the high seas main-battle fleet of the Raspur Pact. Created to be independent of the national navies of the Pact's member states and the Continental Theatre Commands, the Maritime Armada serves as a strategic fleet in being, answerable only to the Joint Military Council of the Pact and deployed at the behest of the Permanent Commission.

Creation

In the 11th month of 1679 AN delegations of staff officers drawn from the naval services of the Natopian Defense Force, the Imperial Constancian Armed Forces, the Drak-Modani Defense Force, and the Maritime Forces of the Black Legions, met at Port Tibernia on the island of Istvanistan to discuss the practicalities of a modern high seas fleet in the age of long-range missile warfare. Discussion turned particularly around the Battle of Carama Bay, an infamous episode in the War of Lost Brothers where the allied navies and Tianchao Haijun had run headlong into each other in the confined waters off shore from Antya River. Whilst successful in deflecting a major Jingdaoese u-boat sortie the surface formations of the allied fleets had suffered tremendously at the hands of shore-based coastal defence missile batteries - incurring losses that were unacceptable at a time when the so-called tonnage gap was already 3:2 in favour of the USSO. The short-term response during the war, of an increased reliance upon long-range aviation supplemented by missile corvettes and fast attack boats, had become the enduring doctrine which prioritised littoral defence and area denial at the expense of long-range force projection. This situation had only been exacerbated by the Kalirion Fracture and the scattering thereby of what remained of the Imperial Navy of Shireroth. By 1679 only Natopia and Constancia maintained credible blue-water navies capable of independent operations away from their home ports.

Naval Policy Directive of 1679

The operations of the Raspur Pact, including items of military expenditure outside the military budgets of the member-states - particularly the operational costs of the Continental Theatre Commands - were historically met by voluntary contributions drawn from the member-states, usually capped at a nominal 2% of GDP, with contributions from poorer member states being offset by goods and services in kind in lieu of direct fiscal transfers. This led to a situation where the burden of capital intensive projects, such as the mooted construction of an entirely new battle-fleet, would fall disproportionately in real terms upon the shoulders of net contributors such as Elwynn and Natopia. As such, when the proposals of the Tibernia Conference were received by the Joint Military Council and relayed to the Permanent Commission, it proved to be the high commissioners from Elwynn and Natopia who proved to be the most stringent in assessing the viability of the proposed shipbuilding programme and the most meticulous in scrutinising the costings provided by the naval planners.

Initial estimates came in at an eye-watering ₦98,261,573,019 required to finance the construction of the so-called twenty-twenty-thirty fleet (twenty battleships, twenty arsenal ships, and thirty missile cruisers). For this reason, as much as the concerns about existing naval construction capacity, the High Commissioners argued forcefully for a staggered shipbuilding programme as well as an overall reduction in the envisaged ship numbers. The result of this political pruning of military ambition eventually becoming known as Plan 1696:

Plan 1696

Hull Laid Down (Year)	Battleship.	Arsenal Ship.	Missile Cruiser.
1680	–	1	–
1681	–	1	1
1682	–	1	1
1683	–	–	2
1684	–	–	2
1685	2	–	2
1686	2	–	2
1687	2	–	2
1688	2	–	2
1689	1	1	2
1690	1	1	2
1691	1	1	2
1692	1	1	2
1693	1	1	2
1694	1	1	2
1695	1	1	2
1696	2	–	1
Total	17	10	29

Fleet construction

Surveys of the existing dockyards associated with the Allied Production Matrix identified four shipyards with dry docks and slipways of sufficient size to handle the construction of the capital ships of the Maritime Armada. These were the International Natopian Yards, (Avenged City), Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock, the Rostock Repair and Refit Shipyards (Alrodey) and the and West Bay NDF Dockyards (Opaeghia). It will be noted that these were all Natopian owned shipyards situated on the continent of Tapfer. The only Benacian shipyard of a sufficient size and capacity was the Musica Dockyards and these had been closed to the Raspur Pact since their seizure by the Guttuli Protectorate.

Designs

Design submissions for the proposed battleship, arsenal ship, and missile cruiser types, drawing upon specifications issued by the Joint Military Council, were sought from various shipbuilding consortia associated with the Allied Production Matrix. In view of Natopia's possession of the requisite infrastructure, technological skill-sets, and experienced design bureaus, the competition had an inevitable Tapferite bias.

Battleship

Name	Class	Hull number	Builder	Laid down	Launched	Commissioned	Home port	Status
MAS Conqueror	Conqueror-class battleship	BB-01	West Bay NDF Dockyards, Opaeghia	02.II.1685 AN	24.V.1686	01.II.1688	Port Istvan	In-service
MAS Courageous	Conqueror-class battleship	BB-02	West Bay NDF Dockyards, Opaeghia	24.XII.1685 AN	10.V.1687	TBC	TBC	At sea for trials
MAS Chimera	Conqueror-class battleship	BB-03	West Bay NDF Dockyards, Opaeghia	15.IV.1686 AN	TBC	TBC	TBC	60% construction phase
MAS Colossus	Conqueror-class battleship	BB-04	West Bay NDF Dockyards, Opaeghia	11.XV.1686 AN	TBC	TBC	TBC	45% construction phase

Arsenal ship

Name	Class	Hull number	Builder	Laid down	Launched	Commissioned	Home port	Status
MAS Imperator	Imperator-class arsenal ship	AS-01	West Bay NDF Dockyards, Opaeghia	24.II.1680	17.V.1683	03.III.1684	Port Istvan	In-service
MAS Intrepid	Imperator-class arsenal ship	AS-02	West Bay NDF Dockyards, Opaeghia	12.IV.1681	11.VII.1684	15.VI.1685	Port Tibernia	In-service
MAS Invincible	Imperator-class arsenal ship	AS-03	West Bay NDF Dockyards, Opaeghia	21.XII.1682	16.X.1685	08.V.1686	Berg Hafen	In-service

Missile cruiser

In 1680 the ESB Armada of Alduria and Sanama State Maritime Industries were invited to join the Cruiser Construction Consortium as partners on the Dominator-class missile cruiser construction programme.

Name	Class	Hull number	Builder	Laid down	Launched	Commissioned	Home port	Status
MAS Dominator	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-01	Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock (Natopia)	02.II.1681 AN	04.VI.1683	11.X.1684	Port Istvan	In-service
MAS Devastator	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-02	Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock (Natopia)	02.II.1682 AN	08.IX.1684	23.VIII.1685	Port Tibernia	In-service
MAS Defender	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-03	Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock (Natopia)	02.II.1683 AN	14.V.1685	25.IV.1686	Port Istvan	In-service
MAS Deterrence	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-04	Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock (Natopia)	02.IV.1683 AN	20.VI.1685	05.III.1686	Berg Hafen	In-service
MAS Deliverance	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-05	ESB Armada (Alduria)	02.II.1684 AN	1685	1686	Port Istvan	In-service
MAS Defiance	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-06	Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock (Natopia)	02.IV.1684 AN	1686	1687	Port Tibernia	In-service
MAS Dragon	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-07	Sanama State Maritime Industries	02.II.1685 AN	1686	1687	Berg Hafen	In-service
MAS Dreadnought	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-08	Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock (Natopia)	02.IV.1685 AN	1686	1687	Port Istvan	In-service
MAS Despatch	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-09	Sanama State Maritime Industries	02.II.1686 AN	1687	1688	Port Tibernia	In-service
MAS Diadem	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-10	Rostock Repair and Refit Shipyards, Alrodey (Natopia)	02.IV.1686 AN	1687	1688	Berg Hafen	In-service
MAS Diligent	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-11	Rostock Repair and Refit Shipyards, Alrodey (Natopia)	04.V.1687 AN	TBC	TBC	TBC	45% construction phase
MAS Demiurge	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-12	Lindström Naval Base Dry Dock (Natopia)	08.VI.1687 AN	TBC	TBC	TBC	25% construction phase
MAS Daemon	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-13	ESB Armada (Alduria)	12.IV.1688 AN	TBC	TBC	TBC	10% construction phase
MAS Dagger	Dominator-class missile cruiser	MC-14	Sanama State Maritime Industries	22.VI.1688 AN	TBC	TBC	TBC	5% construction phase

Fortress Istvanistan

In 1680 the island of Istvanistan, the island containing the deep-water harbours of the Maritime Armada and a strategic linchpin of the Raspur Pact dominating the long island archipelago linking the continents of Benacia and Tapfer, was declared a strategic redoubt to be defended by a heavy coastal fortification network and air defence system.

Defended and garrisoned by the Istvanistani Perimeter Defence Force a force raised by the Most Serene Union in return from a substantial direct subsidy from the Pact, Fortress Istvanistan consisted of layered belts of coastal and inland defensive fortifications, protecting a network of radar stations, hardened missile bastions, flak towers, and dispersed airfields.