I was taken aback a little while ago when I read the raw strength of the KungsArmé just prior to the Clan invasion: 15 BattleMech Regiments, 32 Armoured Regiments, 97 Infantry Regiments, 62 Militia Regiments and 5 Mercenary BattleMech units.
From 20 Years Update, we know that the quality of the Militia Regiments was not consistent because of a lack of training and limited resources but we also know that the priority of the KungsArmé Command was the frontline units and then at some point in the future, the militia ones.
This made me think and I wondered what could have been the overall organisation and strategy of the Free Rasalhague Republic if the Clans hadn't hit it.
So here are my thoughts on it.
The first idea is that I don't plan on expanding the KungsArmé. Why? Because when you look at it, the Free Rasalhague Republic is lacking in terms of industrial power and money and I decided that they would first and foremost focus on supplying and training existing units.
Without the Clans (which unleashed everything up to the Jihad/Republic), the trend towards bigger combined-arms units would have gone forward (remember I am talking from a long historical point of view) and faced with almost no territory to play elastic defence strategy, the KungsArmé would have to stop things right away with the use of Militia units (combined with Planetary units) as pure defensive units, the first ones being “mobile†defensive units while the second ones being the pure defensive players.
With this in mind, I created Home Guard Brigades or Hemvärnet Brigad in Swedish, which are made of 1 BattleMech Regiment, 2 Armoured Regiments and 2 Infantry ones.
This allowed me to create 12 such Brigades, 4 for each Free Rasalhague Republic Province, and left me with two unallocated Regiments, that I decided to turn into BattleMech ones.
Since they are Militia units, I think they would be mobilised either partly (1 Hemvärnet Brigad being active in each Province for a period of 3 years) or fully when a war is likely to happen (if MIMIR is good enough to warn the KungsArmé).
Now this brings us to the Regular units.
Since the influence of the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces was so strong as long as the Headquarters is concerned, I thought that the Federated Commonwealth Armed Forces would also have some influence and therefore the new meta units would follow the Regimental Combat Team pattern with 1 BattleMech Regiment, 3 Armoured Regiments and 5 Infantry ones; giving the KungsArmé 10 RCT to wage the offensive or to counterstrike.
With the remaining units and to create a reserve, I created 1 Brigade (like the Hemvärnet ones but with Regular units).
This left the KungsArmé with 6 BattleMech Regiments (including the Militia ones that have their personnel rotated every 3 years) and 45 Infantry Regiments.
To protect the main worlds (ie the capital world of each Province and the two manufacturing centres), I would go for 5 “pure†Infantry Divisions (with 9 Infantry Regiments each) supported by 1 BattleMech Regiment (and with 2 of them for the one protecting Rasalhague).
I think this organisation makes sense and gives to the KungsArmé both the heavy anvil/hammer combo it needs and a lighter one to deal with lighter threads.
What are your thoughts on this?
