Military of Lindenholt

Royal Lindian Armed Forces
Koninklijke Lindiaanse Krijgsmacht
Founded	1793 (1793)
Current form	1945 (1945)
Service branches	Royal Land Forces Royal Sea Forces Royal Air Forces Royal Realm Guard
Headquarters	Artwingen
Leadership
Prime Minister	Jasper Tulpen
Minister of Defence	Martin Draaf
Chief of Staff	Gerard van Uilenbergen
Manpower
Military age	17
Available for military service	33,185,495, age 17-49
Fit for military service	27,156,932, age 17-49
Reaching military age annually	712,407
Active personnel	206,914 military and civilian (2019)
Expenditures
Budget	$77,6 billion (2017)
Percent of GDP	2.0% (2017)
Industry
Domestic suppliers	Aerobus Bouwer Dekkers Pittacus
Foreign suppliers	Allentyr Aznazia Capsland Umbrellya

The Military of Lindenholt, officially known as the Royal Lindian Armed Forces (Dutch: Koninklijke Lindiaanse Krijgsmacht), is the military of Lindenholt. It encompasses four service branches, those being the Royal Lindian Land Forces, Royal Lindian Sea Forces, Royal Lindian Air Forces and the Royal Lindian Realm Guard. The armed forces are tasked with maintaining the territorial integrity of Lindenholt as well as promoting Lindenholt's interests overseas, maintaining the international rule of law and providing disaster relief. In addition, the Realm Guard is tasked with national policing, border patrol, customs and coastguard roles.

To perform their duties, the armed forces are equipped with modern and technologically sophisticated weapons systems and materiel. While a significant amount of its equipment is designed and produced by domestic weapons manufacturers such as Aerobus, Bouwer, Dekkers and Pittacus, a considerable amount of its equipment is sourced from foreign arms manufacturers such as the Allentyrian Industrial Syndicate from Allentyr, Aviary from Umbrellya and several military contractors from Aznazia.

The Royal Lindian Armed Forces employs a total of 206,914 personnel; of which 150,214 are part of uniformed services. The remaining 56,700 are civilians who perform duties that range from administration to cyber warfare to maintenance. With a budget of around 2.0% of its GDP, the military was allocated a budget of around $77,6 billion in 2017.

Lindenholt is a member of the Ventismar Union and LUCA. Both organisations have common defence clauses, which means that Lindenholt shall act in the defence of its allies. Lindenholt has close ties to the MDAA, being a partner state of the alliance. Sunrisian military personnel are stationed in Lindenholt and conduct exercises with Lindian forces regularly.

History

17th and 18th century

The Lindian military traces its history back to shortly after the country was founded. A standing Lindian military came in to existence in 1604 when the Lindian Republic's parliament passed a bill establishing the State's Navy (Staatse Marine) in an effort to better protect Lindian shipping. The State's Navy would come to control all ocean going war vessels of the Lindian provinces represented in the states general, and would be financed by all the provinces.

Despite the ships being under the ownership of the state, the provinces' own sailors manned the ships. This caused a conflict of interest, and in 1607 all sailors on board these ships were made directly in service of the parliament in Artwingen. Seeing their rights being taken away by the central government, the provinces protested by refusing to provide regular infantry soldiers to guard the ships against raiding pirates on the open seas. Left with no other choice, the states general founded Lindenholt's first standing army unit in 1608; the 1st Marine Infantry Regiment consisted mainly of enlisted sons of Lindian fishermen. They were tasked with guarding Lindian warships, and in 1610 were also assigned to protect Lindian commercial shipping against enemy fleets.

Sailing the open seas had become cheaper and safer for merchants and colonial charters alike due to the guaranteed protection against pirates and hostile fleets due the State's marine infantry and navy. This led to an increase in expeditions to the orient and new world. The expansion in colonial areas lead to the founding of the first colonial infantry regiments; active all across the world. These infantry regiments were in service of the Republic; unlike the Lindian armies in Ventismar - which were loyal to their respective province.

Over the course of the 17th century more and more of the province's defence tasks were taken over by the Republic, until 1726 when the State's Army (Staatse Leger) was founded. Despite this the provinces kept their own militaries, most of which had diminished to small (often ceremonial forces) by that time until the Republic was abolished. The State's Army would be Lindenholt's first fully standing national army.

Land Forces

Main article: Royal Lindian Land Forces

Air Forces

Main article: Royal Lindian Air Forces

Aerobus' ÆF94 "Accipiter" is currently the most advanced aircraft in the air forces' arsenal.

The Royal Lindian Air Forces are tasked with guarding Lindenholt's airspace and to play a supporting role in the operations of the Sea Forces and Land Forces. The Air Forces have a modern and capable fleet of around 300 fixed-wing and 250 rotary-wing aircraft.

The primary front-line air-defence fleet consists out of the AEF-94 Accipiter and AEF-88 Elanus multirole combat aircraft. A smaller number of AEF-75 Aquila strike fighter aircraft perform electronic warfare operations as well as close air support missions.

Sea Forces

Main article: Royal Lindian Sea Forces

Royal Lindian Sea Forces' Dorningen-class frigate HRMLS Van Stokfort.

The Royal Lindian Sea Forces consist out of four surface ship fleets, ranging from 13 to 22 combat ships and a single fleet dedicated to submarine warfare consisting out of eleven diesel powered Forel-class submarines and six Zalm-class nuclear submarines. Support units include a total of 18 oceangoing resupply vessels, a harbour infrastructure specialised engineer's regiment and a logistics regiment.

The Sea Forces have a total of 27 Dorningen-class frigates, with a water displacement of 6,050 tonnes; 18 Reurink-class guided missile destroyers with a displacement of 8,700 tonnes; two Ark van Noah-class landing platform decks that allow for [a] helicopters to operate from it's deck. Additionally the Maximilian Island fleet has a total of four Maxburg-class corvettes in service already, two are to be completed by 2020 for a total fleet of six.

With minimal effort all fleets can be made oceangoing, however thus far Lindenholt's limited involvement with overseas conflicts since the second world war has not yet warranted such measures to be taken. Nevertheless the 1st Fleet based out of Klaarkerk aan Zee and the 4th Fleet based out of Veurink both have world wide capabilities built in to their command structures. Nuclear submarines of the Zalm-class are also rated for worldwide deployments.

What remains of the Sea Force's surface fleet is active in the defence of Lindenholt's waters and in the defence of the VU's frontiers. Since late 2017 the 2nd Fleet has been deployed in Umbrellya.

Realm Guard

Main article: Royal Lindian Realm Guard

The Royal Lindian Genderarme (Koninklijke Rijkswacht) is the smallest branch of the Royal Lindian Armed Forces. It is a military police force, tasked with military and civil police duties along with coast guard, search and rescue operations. The Rijkswacht is also fully responsible for border patrol and customs. Despite being a branch of the military and performing military police duties, the Rijkswacht largely falls under the command of the interior ministry during peacetime.

The Rijkswacht's organisation is based on location, with there being five distinct regions. One for each direction of the compass (north, south, east, west) and an additional fifth one for the Maximilian Islands. Each region has dedicated units for policing duties in the air, on water and on the ground, along with an additional unit dedicated to patrolling Lindenholt's frontiers. The Maximilian Island Rijkswacht lacks a dedicated border patrol unit, with those duties carried out by a large coast guard.

Training

File:Lindian Olesen in forest training.png

Mechanised troops during a training exercise.

File:Lindian mortarmen training.png

Airmobile soldiers firing a mortar during an exercise.

Conscription

Conscription in Lindenholt has been in effect in some form since the early 19th century. Men from the lower classes had to serve anywhere from 12 to 16 months after reaching the age of 18. Throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century the vast majority of soldiers in the Lindian Armed Forces were conscripts.

In modern times however, Lindenholt employs an almost fully professionalised army. However, despite popular belief, conscription in Lindenholt was never abolished. Male citizens ages 17 through 27 are expected to perform 12 months of service, after which they are added to the national reserves until they reach the age of 37. The armed forces can call upon reserves when extra manpower is needed; such as during disasters or times of war. Until 2001 it was a criminal offence for healthy male citizens residing in Lindenholt to object to their service. However, with the end of the Cold War seeing that there was no real necessity for this extra manpower the government decriminalised objection. Effectively making it voluntary. Only those voluntarily doing their military service are added to the reserves.

According to polling done in 2013 by Linfo, around 9% of those called in for service that year voluntarily reported to perform twelve months of training, and subsequent addition to the reserves.

Conscripts perform twelve months of service, which mostly consists out of basic military training and a small amount of specialisation. According to their education, physical performance and skills, conscripts receive different levels of training. Those with higher forms of education or with particular leadership skills receive specialised reservist NCO training. Conscripts whose regular line of work is in construction, engineering or healthcare receive specialised training in those fields, to apply their skills in the military.

Reserves

There are four so-called "training moments" scheduled each year for reservists, each lasting a week. The military provides reservists with full pay of reservists' main jobs with an additional bonus for being on a training exercise. By law, reservists have job security, in the sense that they may not be fired from their main line of work due to their status of reservist.

The exercises take place four times a year, two of them being full-scale field exercises during summer and winter lasting a week each. Additionally, there is a two-day exercise aimed at disaster relief and one taking place during one of Lindenholt's national holidays. It involves reservists performing security duties. Exercises are planned to take place during times when the majority of the personnel do not have to attend work.