Desert Rangers
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| Desert Ranger Corps | |
|---|---|
| Country |  Charnea |
| Branch | Charnean Army |
| Type | Special forces |
| Size | ~14,000 |
| Headquarters | Akenasret Barracks, Azut |
| Nickname(s) | Auxiliaries |
| Motto(s) | ⴻⴼⴻⵡⴻⴽⴰⵏⵏⴻⵙ ⵙ ⴻⴼⴻⵡ Efewekannes s Efew "Fighting Fire with Fire" |
| Colors | Green and Black |
| Mascot(s) | Fennec |
| Anniversaries | March 1st |
| Engagements | Ninvite War
|
| Commanders | |
| Commanding officer | Colonel Zabas Amran |
| Notable commanders | Martuf Lamine Khyar Aziouel |
The Desert Rangers (Tamashek: ⵉⵏⴰⵔⴰⵎⴰⵏ ⵏ ⵜⴻⵏⴻⵔⴻ, Inaraman n Tenere) are the independent special forces units within the Charnean Army organized under the ICA Ranger Corps. They operate as an independent branch of military with their own command structure, procurement system, and recruitment practices, distinguishing them from other special forces such as snipers or airborne assault units which are integrated with the regular formations of the ICA Central Army. The role of the Rangers within the Charnean Army is irregular warfare and intelligence gathering, although they are also regularly deployed to counterterrorism and foreign internal defense operations. Because of their specialization in infiltration, intelligence gathering, and covert operations, the Rangers have at times been used by the Charnean state as a counter elements of organized crime under extraordinary circumstances. During times of war, however, the Rangers have been used to carry out assassinations, sabotage, and terror attacks for the purposes of demoralizing and destabilizing the enemy with varying degrees of success. Rangers have been known to make use of indiscriminate weapons such as roadside bombs and have allegedly been involved in the deployment of chemical and biological agents. As a result, the Rangers are a deeply controversial organization with a mixed reputation even within Charnean military circles.
In contrast to the rest of the Charnean Army, Rangers are primarily drawn from outside of the existing manpower pool of servicemembers and reservists. Volunteers who meet the stringent entry requirements are sent to Ranger School at Senusret Military Academy in Azut for an intensive 18 month training period, subdivided into 6 months of basic military training followed by 12 months of a more specialized training regime to prepare recruits for the mentally and physically strenuous tasks of Ranger work. The Rangers are notable within the Charnean Army for being primarily composed of non-Tenerian recruits, who are often members of the same minorities which make up the insurgent organizations the Rangers fight against. In some circumstances, the Rangers have directly inducted former insurgent fighters into their ranks, greatly increasing the Rangers familiarity with the tactics and organization of the enemy at the cost of an increased infiltration risk. Because of this unusual composition, the Rangers are nicknamed "Auxiliaries" by the predominantly Ajamite Tenerian forces of the rest of the ICA.
Background
The role of military intelligence in the early Charnean Army in the 1920s and 30s was very limited. The leading military thinkers of the time had conceived of the Charnean Army as a force mainly intended as a deterrent against Charnea's stronger neighbors, one which utilize special tactics adapted to the desert terrain to inflict attrition on any invading force through mobility, ambushes and surprise hit-and-run attacks which would eventually grind down the manpower and logistical capacity, or failing this would be able to inflict enough losses so as to break the spirit of the opposing government and compel them to withdraw. Under this concept of what the ICA was to be, there was virtually no allowance for subversive or covert operations, and the role of military intelligence was limited to simple reconnaissance to determine the disposition of the enemy and relay this information to higher officers who could then determine how best to utilize the ICA's regular mobile combat forces. This model was upheld through the Agala War, in which conventional mobile fighting forces were successfully utilized to destroy both the enemy's conventional fighting strength and the guerilla fighters which waged a protracted struggle against the ICA for years afterward. Nevertheless, ICA commanders began to understand the value of intelligence gathering operations far beyond what their formal training and doctrine called for.
If the Agala War offered a challenge to Army doctrine, the escalation which led into the Ninvite War dealt it a killing blow. As the tensions mounted and armed confrontations began in the early 1970s, it became almost immediately apparent that the conventional combat forces equipped and trained to fight a uniformed opposing military force belonging to a hostile nation were woefully ill-prepared to face attacks by insurgent forces arising from within the Charnean population. Early disasters such as the Battle of Alqita in 1973 shocked the Charnean Army, setting off an internal arms race to develop tactics for the new asymmetric war looming on the horizon. One of these was the refining of the pre-existing mobile warfare tactics into a more focused and capable counter-insurgency tactic known as the Ahoyy, a rapidly deployed vertical envelopment which could trap and eliminate guerilla units which could have evaded a slower ground-based sweep. However, the much publicized and successful Ahoyy campaign was not the only response to the ICA's shortcomings when it came to fighting against an insurgency. Some within the Army's intelligence section believed that using more subversive tactics would be the key to defeating a subversive enemy. This belief would be the cornerstone of what would become the Ranger Corps.