Agadegan

An Agadegan (Tamashek: ⴰⴳⴰⴷⴻⴳⴰⵏ, tr. "Fighting Group"; pl. ⵉⴳⴰⴷⴻⴳⴰⵏⴻⵏ, Igadeganen) is a unit of organization in the Charnean Army (ICA) of variable size and composition. The term generally refers to an ad hoc task force of two or more combat formations, typically Akenasat (battalion)-sized units, assembled to pursue a set operational objective. In ICA doctrine, an Agedegan is intended to be a fully autonomous formation capable of independently prosecuting its objectives as part of an overarching strategy. Because of this autonomous nature, Igadeganen are in almost all cases combined arms formations that include infantry, armored elements, artillery support, and aircraft. Unlike the more permanent formations of the ICA, an Agadegan is typically named either for the operation for which it has been assembled or for its commanding officer, and is never numbered. The Agadegan has been the cornerstone of Charnean military organization since the mid-20th century, influencing military thought in the area of combined arms maneuver warfare.

Origin

The basis of the modern Agadegan as it appears in the Charnean Army emerged gradually out of the Ihemodian military tradition of the medieval Ninvite state. At the strategic level, one of the principal strengths of the Ihemodian Ninvite armies was their forces into highly-mobile, fully autonomous formations that could independently carry out objectives. This strength of Ihemodian organization and leadership enabled the Ninvite armies, which where in almost all cases smaller than those of their opponents, to divide up opposing forces and inflict a defeat in detail. The Ninvite art of war therefore came to strongly emphasize autonomous self-sustaining formations that could independently carry out operations. This principle would be briefly suppressed as a result of the military modernization of 1910, itself part of the rising Modernist power in Agnannet which would ultimately give rise to the refoundation of the Ninvite state as the Charnean Empire. Military modernization of the early 20th century in Charnea, besides introducing modern weaponry and tactics, also introduced foreign standards of military organization that would see the modern Charnean military organized long the lines of regiments, legions and divisions in the image of modern Belisarian militaries of the era, specifically the Latin Army which the Modernists considered to be the premier military of the age.

Modern History

The modernized structure of the Charnean Army would be put to the test during the Agala War (1945-1947). Although the main fighting formations preformed well in conventional set-piece battles during the initial phase of the war against the forces of the Agala Republic and various Amayana governorates, rigid adherence to the structural doctrine and the chain of command associated with it proved detrimental in the protracted guerilla war that followed. The needs of the low-intensity conflict, which pitted the modernized Charnean Army against fast-moving bands of irregular fighters widely dispersed across the Agala highlands, put pressure on the Charnean command to adapt to the situation. The Agadegan re-emerged, for the first time under that name, by mid-1946 as the ICA adapted its tactics to counter guerilla forces across the Agala by deploying its own small, mobile formations under autonomous operational command. The ad hoc and flexible nature of the Agadegan-style formation facilitated a widely-dispersed deployment of Charnean troops without a corresponding loss of local cohesion and combat effectiveness, and would be widely embraced by Charnean military leadership despite early difficulties.

The concept of an Agadegan-based army would mature in the years following the Agala War, particularly as the Charnean military began to experiment with aerial assault and the integration of airborne elements into the Ninvite theory of warfare. Alongside the emergence of Ahoyy tactics, the full adoption of the Agadegan as the prime unit of warfare would come to define the Ninvite War-era ICA. By the mid-1970s, most formations larger than the battalion level were seen as functionally obsolete in the new reality of large-scale guerilla warfare and had been abandoned. Mobilized personnel would be trained in Taggayt (company) and Akenasat (battalion) sized formations along with their officers, and would subsequently function as an independent battalion until assigned to an multi-unit operation, which could be a combat operation or an exercise under a training Agadegan. One of the notable aspects of the modern Charnean Agadegan, reinforcement by replacement of whole sub-units, would also be defined in this era. The Agadegan as it was established by the end of the Ninvite War has been largely unchanged in its use by the Charnean Army to the present day.

Doctrine

The Akenasat, a 300-700 soldier formation, is the basic unit of maneuver in the Charnean Army and can take the form of a general-purpose mechanized infantry formation with integrated armor and artillery support, or a more specialized form as seen in the ICA's air-mobile Ahoyy battalions. The function of the Agadegan is to coordinate the actions of the Akenasat-sized units as part of a wider operation, ranging from regiment-sized groups of two Ikanesaten engaged in small-scale maneuvers to division-sized formations of up to 15 Ikanesaten assigned to a major operation. The Agadegan-based model embraced by the ICA is founded in the reality of Charnea's military situation, in which insurgency and proxy conflicts represent a much more present threat than the prospect of a conventional and intensive inter-state war. The demands of such low-intensity conflicts necessarily favor smaller units of maneuver and a more flexible organizational framework which the Agadegan system aims to provide.

The Agadegan system upholds Charnean military traditions which emphasize commander autonomy and espirit de corps. In contrast to a brigade-based system of organization, the Agadegan enables lower level commanders to retain an element of autonomy within their respective commands while promoting a level of inter-unit coordination necessary for effective combined arms combat actions. When the Ikanesaten that make up an Agadegan suffer losses and need to be reinforced, this is typically done through a relief in place, allowing the under-manned and fatigued unit to go to the rear as a whole and be replaced in an ideally one-to-one fashion by the reinforcing formation. This is done in order to preserve the integrity of the unit from the Akenaset command level down to the individual squadrons (hewwa) with the purpose of upholding espirit de corps.