Ghantish Navy

Ghantish Navy
Active	1939 (as reconstituted in its current form)
Country	Ghant
Allegiance	Monarch(s) of Ghant
Branch	Navy
Size	27,590 (not including the Imperial Marines]]

The Imperial Ghantish Navy is the maritime arm of the Ghantish Imperial Forces. Tasked with defending the sovereignty of Ghant's territorial waters, assisting its allies in war and contributing towards the peacekeeping and the maintenance of stability in volatile regions of the world, the Ghantish Navy is a potent force with global reach.

History

As a continent surrounded by the North Thalassan Ocean, the Ghantish People has long been a maritime nation, and its navy its first line of defence. Despite its historically isolationist stance, the navy of the Empire of Ghant had always kept apace of the development of naval technology and tactics of the great powers, lest they fall behind and allow the Ghantish homeland to be vulnerable to invasion. As of 1935, on the eve of the Ghantish Revolution, the Ghantish Navy's order of battle stood at 4 modern fast battleships, 6 modernised old dreadnought battleships, 7 heavy and 11 light cruisers built between the 1920's-1935, a pair of aircraft carriers modified from a terminated battlecruiser program, and a burgeoning destroyer and submarine fleet. The Ghantish Revolution inflicted a measure of damage to the navy, and afterwards it struggled, like the rest of the world's great powers, to adapt to the rapid technological change in naval technology between the 1940's to 1960's. The current Ghantish Navy is a product of this extensive heritage of evolution and adaptation.

Fleet Units

The modern Ghantish fleet is built around its two Helios-class light carrier, the HIMS Leviathan and Colossus. Each is the head of its carrier battle group, composed of a destroyer squadron with at least one Ezpata-class destroyer and two to three Gezi-class frigates. The carrier battle groups provide the Ghantish Navy's primary means of air- and sea-control, as well as its power-projection capability. They also have the function of protecting and providing support to Ghant's amphibious warfare elements in a major landing operation.

Complementing the 'battle fleet' centred around the two light carriers is a 'patrol fleet'. Composed of some twenty four corvettes, these long-endurance surface units provide a cost-effective way for the Ghantish Navy to discharge its primary peacetime duties of anti-piracy, long range patrol, 'showing the flag' and 'gunboat diplomacy' where the deployment of a full carrier battle group may be disproportionate or counterproductive.

Fleet Air Arm

The Ghantish Navy's Fleet Air Arm administers the aircraft in the navy's service. These include the fixed-wing aeroplanes and helicopters embarked upon Ghant's men-of-war, as well as shore-based aircraft tasked with supporting them. In today's navy, they are split into roughly five categories: anti-submarine helicopters, fighter-bombers, maritime patrol aircraft, airborne early-warning helicopters and miscellaneous types of helicopters and drones.

Unlike the Imperial Air Force, owing to the size contraints imposed by the light carriers fielded, the navy's strike fighters are STOVL types of Arthuristan origin. In the 1980's, they were subsonic Sea Kestrel's, later replaced in the 2000's with the supersonic Whirlwind.

Ghantish Marines

The Ghantish Marines, also known as the Ghantish Naval Infantry, is the amphibious warfare arm of the empire's navy. Its main combat formation is the Imperial Marine Brigade, which is predominantly a light infantry formation with three rifle battalions, an artillery battalion equipped with 18 FH77 155mm guns and 4 HIMARS rocket launchers, an air defence battery equipped with RBS-70 missiles, an engineer company, a reconnaissance company, a company of 13 CV90120 light tanks, a signal company, an assault boats company and a logistics and maintenance battalion. The infantry elements are partially mobilised in BvS 10 articulated tracked vehicles. The brigade may be deployed by the navy's two Menelaus-class landing platform docks. The entire force consists of roughly 5,000 personnel.

The Combat Swimmers Unit is a company-sized formation of the Ghantish Marines, trained and equipped for special operations in a maritime environment.

Equipment

Carriers and Amphibious Assault Ships

Name	Origin	Type	Numbers in service	Notes
Helios-class light carrier	Arthurista	Light fleet carrier	2	Carries 12-16x Aigios/Arthuristan Dynamics Whirlwind, 3x Sea King early warning and 8 x Cassini anti-submarine or utility helicopters
Menelaus-class landing platform dock	Belfras	Landing Platform Dock	2

Major surface combatants

Name	Origin	Type	Numbers in service	Notes
Ezpata-class destroyer	Ghant	Air defence destroyer	3
Gezi-class frigate	Ghant	General purpose frigate	8
Ghepardo-class corvette	Ghant	Corvette	15
Tigre-class corvette	Ghant	Corvette	9
Arculari-class destroyer	Ghant	Destroyer	1	Museum ship

Submarines

Name	Origin	Type	Numbers in service	Notes
Viking-class submarine	Ghant	Diesel-electric attack submarine	8

Small surface craft

Name	Origin	Type	Numbers in service	Notes
Sandown-class minehunter	Arthurista	Minehunter
Archer-class patrol vessel	Arthurista	Patrol boat
Seagull-class patrol vessel	Ghant	Ice-breaking patrol boat
Kaio-class patrol cutter	Ghant	Far north patrol cutter		13

Naval aviation

Name	Origin	Type	Numbers in service	Notes
Arthuristan Dynamics Whirlwind	Arthurista/Belfras	Multirole fighter (STOVL)	32	A further 12 are in reserve
Sea King AEW7	Arthurista	Airborne early warning aircraft	6	Former main anti-submarine and utility type. Currently only early-warning variant remain in service aboard carriers.
Clios Cassini	Belfras	Multirole helicopter
Lynx Wildcat	Arthurista	Multirole helicopter		Used aboard Ghepardo-class corvettes