Menghean Navy
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| Menghean Navy | |
|---|---|
| 대멩 해군 / 大孟海軍 Dae Meng Haegun | |
Naval Flag of the Menghean Navy | |
| Founded | 1898 |
| Current form | 1988 |
| Service branches | Maritime Border Forces Marine Infantry Naval Aviation |
| Headquarters | Sunju |
| Leadership | |
| Supreme Marshal of Menghe | Choe Sŭng-min |
| High Admiral | Yi Han-bin |
| Personnel | |
| Active personnel | 250,000 (est.) |
| Expenditure | |
| Budget | $297 billion |
| Percent of GDP | 2.1% |
The Menghean Navy (Menghean: 대멩 해군 / 大孟海軍, Dae Meng Haegun) is the Naval Military arm of the Socialist Republic of Menghe.
History
Early history (antiquity to 1865)
Rebirth and modernization (1865-1927)
The immediate precursor of today's Menghean Navy was the Menghean People's Navy, officially established in 1964 at the end of the Menghean War of Liberation. Between foreign disarmament and the evacuation of Republican ships, its list of assets was pitifully short: two super-heavy cruisers, three destroyers, and six submarine chasers, as well as various torpedo boats and light patrol craft. Most of the major assets had been captured during the Gyŏngsan Mutiny, and all ships save for two submarine chasers were of PSW vintage. Having just emerged from thirty years of continuous conflict with the Western powers, the leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe were deeply concerned about the possibility of a foreign sea invasion, and launched the First Emergency Shipbuilding Program in an effort to restore some naval defensive capability. Many ships built during this period, such as the Taepung-class destroyers, were based on late-war designs and were obsolete from the moment they were laid down. The DPRM also purchased a number of warships from Letnia, which, due to its neutrality policy and relations with Kolodoria, became a major supplier of arms for the Menghean Navy.
From its formation onward, the Menghean People's Navy was highly defensive in orientation. Menghe's recovering shipbuilding capability left its fleet numerically and technologically inferior to the forces of Dayashina, Tír Glas, Sieuxerr, and Anglia and Lechernt, ruling out any meaningful power projection. At the same time, the DPRM's economy was relatively isolated from trade, and its main resource suppliers shipped goods over land, so there was little need to protect sea lanes in a conflict. The main role of the MPN was to intercept enemy landing ships and aircraft carriers, or at least buy time for the Menghean People's Army to prepare beachhead defenses. To serve this mission, the MPN was divided into two forces: the South Sea Fleet, which focused on intercepting traffic through the Strait of Portcullia, and the East Sea Fleet, which focused on engaging Dayashinese and Hanhaean forces around the East Sea (or Sea of Fuso). To allow free travel between the two areas, the DPRM invested in a naval landing force capable of seizing the Renkaku Islands, which formed a chain between the East and South Menghe Seas. Submarine bases in Maverica and Polvokia also allowed Menghean submarines to raid transoceanic shipping without having to slip through bottleneck areas en route.
It was in this period that Menghean naval doctrine developed into a new model emphasizing the counteroffensive strike. Faced with numerically and technologically superior large-ship forces, the Menghean People's Navy aimed to leverage its short supply chains and proximity to home ports, relying heavily on shore-based missiles, naval aviation, and light missile craft. Even its larger ships, like the Nunbora and Chŏndong classes, had relatively short ranges, and were designed to sortie from base, launch a salvo of anti-ship missiles, and withdraw to re-arm. To detect incoming threats, the Navy built a large network of HF/DF stations along the east coast of Menghe and the south coast of Innominada; to reduce losses in the face of enemy air superiority, maritime reconnaissance aircraft would only sortie to confirm the locations of approximate targets. As enemy anti-ship missile defenses improved, the Navy placed an increasingly heavy emphasis on saturating targets with large numbers of missiles from multiple directions. This demanded large investments in C3ISTAR assets and capabilities, and a different approach to training and planning. While the Menghean People's Army encouraged some lower-level initiative as part of its Fluid Battle Doctrine, the MPN adopted a very top-down approach. Under ideal circumstances, admirals in land-based installations would issue all commands to forces at sea, down to the exact launch time of each missile. Diesel-electric fleet submarines enjoyed some autonomy on oceangoing raids, but in the fleet support role they were expected to operate close to the surface and receive commands via radio periscope.
By the mid-1980s, the Menghean People's Navy had developed into a potent fighting force, with a large force of destroyers, submarines, and maritime bombers. The supersonic YDH-23 missile, originally a Letnian air-launched weapon, was developed into ship-launched, land-launched, and even submarine-launched variants, and Western and Dayashinese intelligence sources regarded it as a serious enough threat to merit the development of newer surface-to-air missile systems. While the cruiser projects of the 1970s, like Plan 137 Bangpae, never progressed beyond the design stage, in 1981 Menghe laid down its first postwar aircraft carrier and was planning to lay down another. Diplomatic setbacks, however, forced a serious re-evaluation of the Navy's defensive prospects. Following the nuclear test at Naran Gaja in November 1984, Western powers invoked the STAND Treaty to impose a total economic embargo on the DPRM, and even Menghe's allies in Hemithea cooperated out of a concern over Ryŏ Ho-jun's instability. This forced the MPA and MPN to withdraw their forces from Polvokia and Innominada. The loss of the former denied Menghe submarine bases on the Helian Ocean, and the loss of the latter denied Menghe air and naval bases on the Strait of Portcullia. Ryŏ responded by ordering the Second Emergency Shipbuilding Program, which focused on Chŏndong-class destroyers and Plan 215 corvettes with longer strike radii.
The Decembrist Revolution which brought Choe Sŭng-min to power ushered in a period of détente with Menghe's main rivals, allowing a decrease in military spending and a shift toward economic growth. Despite back-channel efforts to broach the issue, Innominada and Polvokia refused to return former Menghean bases on the Helian Ocean and Strait of Portcullia, and the new Menghean leadership ultimately dropped the issue out of a fear that pushing it too hard would undermine efforts to normalize trade relations. Instead, the MPN (now simply the Menghean Navy) shifted its focus toward longer-range warships which could patrol the Strait of Portcullia while operating from bases in Southwest Menghe. Ships of this generation included the Ansa-class frigates and Chanjok Jachido-class cruisers, as well as the last batch of Chŏndong-class destroyers and the later Pyŏng'an-class destroyers.
During the 1990s, the Menghean Navy still relied primarily on exported Letnian powerplants and weapon systems, though a domestic missile design industry was emerging alongside them. Hallia, one of the first states to normalize trade with Menghe, took the risky step of selling state-of-the-art sonar equipment for the Chanjok Jachidos, in the hopes that a stronger Menghean Navy would counterbalance the EC's presence in the South Menghe Sea. Highly impressed with the performance of Hallian sonar on trials, Menghe ordered additional sets for the Hawŏn-class frigates and Pyŏng'an-class destroyers.
In the late 1990s, Menghe entered into negotiations with Tír Glas over acquiring a production license for the SM-2MR and Mark 41 Vertical Launching System. Major obstructions to the deal included allegations of human rights abuses during the Disciplined Society Campaign and diplomatic pressure from Dayashina, whose military planners still did not fully trust the new Menghean government. The situation finally eased in March 2001, when Choe Sŭng-min visited Dayashina in person and agreed to relinquish all territorial claims to the Renkaku Islands. As a sign of goodwill, Dayashina partially lifted its arms embargo on Menghe, and the licensing deals for the Mk 41 VLS and SM-2MR went forward in May. The availability of a universal hot-launch vertical launch system allowed for a new generation of Menghean surface combatants, first among them the Haeju-class destroyers.
Expansion and reforms (2005-2020)
Structure
In addition to its combat surface forces, the Menghean Navy contains three specialized sub-arms: Naval Aviation, the Marine Infantry, and the Maritime Patrol Forces.
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EDIT AND CONDENSE Ever since the commissioning of the first Menghe seaplane tender in 1918, the Imperial Soodean Navy has operated its own aviation forces. These are divided into Shipborne Aviation and Coastal Aviation. Shipborne aviation consists of assets directly based from ships at sea, such as the helicopters carried in warships' hangars and the aircraft that make up carrier air wings. Coastal aviation, meanwhile, refers to aircraft operating from Navy air bases on the shore. As of 2015, Soodean Coastal Aviation operates over 1,000 aircraft of all types. These include not only maritime patrol aircraft, but also maritime strike bombers, attack planes, air-superiority fighters, and, since 2014, attack helicopters. It is intended to pursue full-spectrum operations, including maritime and aerial reconnaissance, strikes on enemy port infrastructure, anti-ship missile attacks on enemy warships, escort flights for its own attack aircraft and warships, and defense against enemy bombers or attack aircraft bound for the mainland.
Originally, Coastal Aviation functioned operationally and administratively as a separate branch within the Imperial Soodean Navy and its predecessors. The various land-based Wings and Aviation Regiments were pooled under the control of the "Admiral of Land-Based Aviation." During the 2004 reforms, however, Coastal Aviation was broken up and placed under the direct control of the three fleets and one flotilla. Each Fleet now contains its own Coastal Aviation assets, and is responsible for all aerial missions within its sector. This change was intended to facilitate cooperation between sea and land-based forces, making it easier for Admirals to coordinate aerial strikes with sea-based ones.
Marine Infantry
EDIT AND CONDENSE
The Soodean Marine Infantry (Sudeyanri Marin Peitai) are an arm of service that has historically been passed between Army control, Navy control, and independent status. Since 2005, it has been a semi-independent arm of the Navy; it has its own Marshal at the administrative level, and uses Army ranks and doctrine, but its units are operationally controlled by the Navy. Marine Infantry soldiers can be distinguished from their Army counterparts by their uniforms, which follow a different camouflage pattern, and their shoulder insignia, which use the same rank markings but on a dark green background rather than a dark red one. They generally receive better training than their Army counterparts, and have a higher ratio of volunteers to conscripts than the Army average. They are also among the first units to receive new equipment, often in a -MP (Marin Peitai) variant modified to suit their needs.
Current active forces consist of six Marine Infantry Brigades. Three are under the control of the First Fleet, and are operationally assigned to Amphibious Assault Battlegroups that include long-range LPDs and LSDs capable of transporting the entire Brigade over a long distance to strike objectives in the enemy's strategic depth. The remaining three Marine Infantry Brigades are under the control of the First Flotilla, and would make shorter-distance landings with smaller units in smaller landing craft. There is also a seventh brigade, the Marine Tank Brigade, which is also stationed in the First Fleet but which would need to transfer to another unit's Amphibious Assault Battlegroup or be transported to a secure port by converted cargo ships. The organization of Marine Brigades is based on that of Army Regiments, but has been steadily adapted to meet the Marine Infantry's needs, including a high level of amphibious capability and greater small-unit autonomy. The Marine Infantry, along with the Air Assault Infantry, are the only two sub-branches of the Soodean military to be administered through a Brigade rather than a Divisional system.
Maritime Patrol Forces
EDIT The Maritime Patrol Forces (often abbreviated MaGyoTai) function as the coast guard of the Soodean Imperium. Its main missions consist of search and rescue and maritime law enforcement. The latter includes regular patrols of key fisheries and mineral deposits in the Soodean exclusive economic zone, as well as anti-smuggling operations around Soodean {{wp|Territorial_waters|territorial waters)). Even before the Soodean Imperium's establishment, smuggling along the borders with Erusuia and Innominada has been common, with the Soodean government identifying drugs and firearms as the most threatening goods. Like the ISN, the Maritime Patrol Forces operate their own helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, which are mainly intended for search and rescue but have also been used to patrol for intruders across large stretches of ocean in the EEZ.
Unlike coast guard forces in many other nations, the Soodean MaGyoTai are a paramilitary organization, and are administratively under the control of the Navy. Many of their warships carry military-grade weapon systems, usually in the form of 30mm CIWS and light surface-to-air missiles but sometimes including guns of up to 76mm caliber. In times of war, the Navy could mobilize the Maritime Patrol Forces as a reserve force, with their armed warships serving as low-grade escorts for supply ships or troop transports. In the period after the collapse of the Innominadan government but before the Soodean invasion of Innominada, the Maritime Border Forces were also deployed in armed counter-piracy operations off the Innominadan coast, where they demonstrated their usefulness in light combat.
Fleets
EDIT AND ELABORATE Since the last reorganization in 2008, the Imperial Soodean Navy's warships have been divided into three fleets and one flotilla. The First Fleet was originally headquartered in the city of Fai, from which it patrolled the southwest approach to the country. In October 2015 its headquarters were formally relocated to the city of San Vicente on the southwest coast of the Republic of Innominada, and its patrol area was expanded to include the eastern areas of the Helian Ocean. On the opposite side of the country, the Third Fleet is responsible for a broad swath of ocean running from the south coast of Erusuia to the north coast of Xiangshu. Because this patrol area is adjacent to the allied country of New Oyashima, the Third Fleet is the weakest and least modern of the ISN's three major fleets. The Second Fleet is still headquartered in Changzha, which also serves as the headquarters of the ISN. It is mainly intended to serve as a reserve force for the First or Third fleets, but could also be deployed against Xiangshu if the latter attempts to aid Maverica in a Soodean-Maverican war. The First Flotilla, established in 2004, is a collection of smaller craft originally organized to fight along the coast of the Republic of Innominada in the event of a Soodean-Innominadan war. In 2015, after victory in the Soodean-Innominadan war, it was relocated to Las Playas on the west coast of the Republica Innominada.
Prior to the 2004 reforms within the Navy, the ISN also contained a Fourth Fleet and a Fifth Fleet. These were merged into the First and Second Fleets, respectively, and many of their older warships were decommissioned. The Second Flotilla, formed in 1985 to defend the northeastern coast against instability in Erusuia, was disbanded in 2007 and its component warships were transferred to the First Flotilla.
Equipment
Ships and submarines
Aircraft carriers: 6
Cruisers: 9
Destroyers: 29
- Wihae-class: 14
- Haeju-class: 10
- Insŏng-class: 5
Frigates: 52
- Dandohan-class: 12
- Yŏngbok-class: 22
- Jŏngdŏk-class: 11
- Yŏngtae-class: 7
Corvettes: 91
- Kim Sam-sun class: 16
- Kim Chŏl-jin class: 22
- Cha Ryong-dŏk class: 24
- Ri Sun-hŭi class: 29
Submarines: 56
- Bbarŭn-class: 24
- Gyohwalhan-class: 8
- Sesimhan-class: 8
- Daedamhan-class: 16
Other