Royal Space Force

Royal Space Force
Leadership
Banríona	Lothwyn II
Minister of Space	George Whittleton
Marshal of the RSF	Rich Smith

The Royal Space Force is the space warfare branch of the Commonwealth's military.

Structure

Space Aviation Arm

This is the fighter and bomber force of the Royal Space Force, based upon the Royal Morridane Navy's Fleet Air Arm table of organization.

The SAA has many similarities with the naval aviation forces of other nations. It is relatively high in morale, highly trained and well motivated. Commonwealth craft tend to be more of a mix and more obsolete designs are kept operational for longer than would be the case in other forces, however the attitude and background of combat pilots tends to be comparable.

Fighter squadrons tend to be organized into three flights of four craft each, giving a total of twelve such craft per squadron. Bomber squadrons tend to be smaller, consisting of only nine such crafts grouped into three flights of three crafts each.

Transport Command

This has overall control of space transport navigation in the Commonwealth. This is a massive and expanding responsibility as TC run the traffic control, CCA vessels and crews, colonial transport ships, most refuelling and supply stations as well as many port structures (particularly fuel handling and atomic materials). Transport Command has a complex organisational structure but a great deal of their responsibility is to keep the flow of people and goods between CCA worlds, so some staff may not land on a planet from one year to the next.

Transport Command provides supplies and carriage to Strike Command and uses many pilots from the WASS.

Auxiliary and Reserve Command

Often assumed to be a backwater command.

Reserve Forces

ARC controls Commonwealth Reserve Forces (personnel have to remain in the reserve for 7 years after demob and may volunteer to join the reserve up to the age of 35). People may stay in the Reserves until the age of 55 as long as they pass an annual physical. As the RSF is a main source of flight training, many merchant crews will have members who are still in the reserve (there is a small monthly stipend to sweeten this requirement).

Reserve Assets

ARC also controls various materials and assets in the event of an emergency (such as wartime). This is particularly important because many ships sold on from CCA service remain liable under the Reserve Forces Act (which is noted in sale contracts) for use in an emergency. Although the present owners would be compensated that means that the Commonwealth can “repossess” a ship they no longer own in the event of a declaration of emergency. Some commentators have referred to this as the Commonwealth’s “legalised piracy” act as it would theoretically allow the legal owner to be deprived of their property if the Commonwealth went to war. Compensation would be paid and that ship would have to be returned after the emergency was over, but it remains an issue for some.

The act is actually intended to ensure that the Commonwealth would have adequate tonnage for a relief effort in case of a major disaster on one of its colony worlds and has only been used as a threat to avert overcharging by commercial shipping lines in periods of unusual demand. It gives an effective legal sanction against anyone attempting to profiteer.

Colonial Defence Forces

The Auxilliary Command covers Colonial Defence Force Units which are part-time military units raised on colony worlds. The Colonial Defence Forces are intended to only operate in their own system. Many Reservists join a Colonial Defence Force unit , as Reservists are liable to reactivation anyway this allows them to get paid for training and gives them access to CCA sponsored training courses. These are part-time forces organised along Morridane Territorial Army lines. Pay rates are comparable to regular forces but they are only paid for the hours they actually serve. The minimum requirement is two days a month. The best examples of CCA Colonial Defence Forces are those light infantry units raised in each colony for its defence; however there are also CDF equivalents of a large range of military units (engineering, signals etc).

Despite their impromptu nature Colonial Defence Force Units provide significant defensive “stiffening” for CCA colonies given that the overall level of defensive expenditure is much lower than that compared to other nations. Colonial Defence Force units do vary quite a lot, from those that are highly professional and almost indistinguishable from regular military units to those that are more of a local militia and a few that are really glorified social clubs with military-grade weapons. Experience suggests that Colonial Defence Forces are particular important in low-intensity conflicts. They are local people with local knowledge and as such provide an organic connection between the Commonwealth military to the local civilian population. They also provide the Commonwealth with a way of conserving valuable personnel without having to pay them regular wages.

Women's Auxiliary Space Service

Space crew were a particular problem because the colonisation effort required large numbers of trained personnel. Most of these “milk runs” were uneventful to the point of tedium and often empty ships had to be ferried back home once they had delivered their load of new colonists. This was before the colonies were producing anything to be exported back to the Commonwealth. Spending two weeks ferrying an empty colony transport back home wasn’t a popular assignment, wasn’t perceived as skilled or high-status and amongst the aggressive “right-stuff” culture of space pilots was grossly unpopular. So a modified form of the wartime Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was created, which after many name changes settled on calling themselves the Women’s Auxiliary Space Service (WASS). This trained large numbers of women for “ferrying” duties (returning empty transports back home), but the long term effect was to produce large numbers of qualified pilots with thousands of hours of flying time on their log-books, who just happened to be women. These ferry pilots were generally restricted to transports (strike craft remain the province of male pilots).

Traffic Control

During the Border War many a bomber crew were happy to hear a WRAF woman’s voice talking them down through fog to their bases, so into the fifties and sixties spacecrew more or less expected it to be a women giving them exit vectors out of the system or landing clearance. The archetypal voice of CCA space traffic control is an English woman speaking in the clipped tones of Received Pronunciation.

Commonwealth traffic control is an important part of the experience of entering Commonwealth Space. It is a legal requirement for incoming ships to contact traffic control by radio and follow instructions from the controller. After 2001 any ship on a closing vector with a Commonwealth colony that does not comply and does not respond to hails can expect to be the subject of lethal force by Commonwealth interceptors.

Intelligence

Photographic analysis and signals intelligence is a branch predominantly staffed by women. This means that women were often the camera operators on test and cartographic flights and conceivably on spy flights during this period. CCA communication relay stations and their associated “listening” posts would also often have female operators. All-female stations were seen as less likely to have the “rats in a cage” discipline problems of either all male or mixed crews. Women in these sorts of roles are also more likely to be recruited for a variety of other intelligence and surveillance tasks.

Royal Astro-Marines

The Royal Astro-Marines (RAMs for short) are the infantry arm of the Royal Space Force, typically performing similar roles to naval marines. They provide shipboard security, guard RSF installations and undertake boarding actions. The RAMs are also the primary source of recruitment for the Special Space Service (see below).

Special Space Service

The Special Space Service (or Triple S) was initially just an off-world training establishment for the Morridane SAS when first established in the early 1960s, providing a place for Commonwealth special forces to learn about operating in space and the new colonies. By 1972 it had been formerly established as a force in its own right and drew recruits from the RAMs, though selection is open to all members of the Commonwealth military forces if they meet the stringent entry requirements.

Personnel

Officer ranks

Marshal of the RSF OF-10 (5 Star Rank)

Space Chief Marshal OF-9 (4 Star Rank)

Space Marshal OF-8 (3 Star Rank)

Space Vice-Marshal OF-7 (2 Star Rank)

Space Commodore OF-6 (1 Star Rank)

Captain OF-5

Commander OF-4

Lt.Commander OF-3

Space Leftenant OF-2

Flight Officer OF-1

Other ranks

Warrant Officer OR-9

-No OR-8 equivalent-

Chief Petty Officer OR-7

Petty Officer OR-6

-No OR-5 equivalent-

Senior Crewman OR-4

Leading Crewman OR-3

Able Crewman OR-2

Crewman OR-1