Russian Coalition

Russian Coalition
Govenment Details
Faction	Grand Coalition
Current Leader	Tsar Vladimir I of the House of Rurik-Novy
Date Founded	1800
Capital City	St Petersburg
Other Details
Category	Major Nation
Close Allies	Kingdom of Britannia Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Dominion

The Russian Coalition is by a considerable margin the largest land power in the world. Its vast holdings girdle half the northern hemisphere, from the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth to the north-eastern tip of Asia; the Coalition even has borders with the FSA and Britannian Canada, as it also claims the great wilderness of Alaska at the north-western edge of the New World. Its northern border brushes the Arctic, while in the south it abuts the wastes of the Gobi Desert, China and the Ottoman Empire. This enormous empire encompasses every imaginable landscape: soaring mountains, sweeping grassy steppes, windswept tundra, searing deserts and dark, forbidding forests. These vast lands are rich in resources of all kinds, easily fuelling the great expansion of industry and agriculture incepted by Tsar Nikolai and ontinued with gusto by his son Vladimir.

This territorial giant has a population to match, and while it is not quite as large as the empire’s landmass would suggest, it is still many times larger than any other single nation’s, with the possible exception of the Chinese Federation. Although often seen as a monolithic horde, the Coalition’s people are composed of a bewildering array of ethnic groups, social orders and creeds. The largest single group are the Great Russians, who dwell mostly in the European portions of the Tsar’s domain and who form its ruling class. But in these regions alone the empire also encompasses Finns, Ukranians, Ruthenians, Latvians, Bulgars, Georgians, Armenians and Azeris. From further afield come Siberian tribesmen, Mongols, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and countless others.

The European portions of the Coalition, and some areas of its far eastern holdings near the Chinese and Korean borders, are highly urbanised and heavily industrialised, while other areas, such as the wilderness of Siberia and the arid Kazakh hinterlands, are only sparsely populated and largely agrarian. Apart from the autonomous Oblast of Alaska, and few small islands to the north of Japan, all of the Coalition’s territory is contained within its borders. This sheer concentration of land, people and resources is what makes the Russian Coalition so intimidating.

Government

The Russian Government is essentially a dictatorship under the current Tsar, Vladimir I, a title that is hereditary and functions almost identically to that of a monarch. Vladimir inherited his position from his father, who in turn gained it through a coup where he restored and subsequently supplanted the real Tsar. Vladimir I may be the ultimate authority, but he is forced to deal with the nobility and must be wary of angering his subjects much like any other monarch, he has however reinstated the Oprichnia, a secret service that allows him to "remove" obstacles to his power with relative ease. Vladimir I is currently in a strong position politically with strong favor from all his peers.

Millitary Forces

Main Article: White Army

The military forces of the Russian Coalition is mostly focused on land warfare, this follows logically due to having to secure a large landmass, the Russians have just as much overland border to other nations as it has coastline, and most of said coastline act more as a barrier to invasion than as an assault vector, there has simply not been much need for a strong navy and therefore it is subordinate to the "White Army" rather than a separate organ. This might change as the White Navy is gaining influence due to Vladimir's expansionist ambitions.

On the Tabletop

Signature Weaponry: Ablative Armour, Heavy short-ranged gunfire, Large conscripted marine parties, Mortars

The Russian fleet may seem very straightforward, most ships carry short ranged, high-powered guns, mounted solely forwards with no guns astern. Add to that, Russian ships often have the Ablative Armour MAR, which makes the ships significantly harder to damage for the first few hits. This truly makes the Russians into a sledgehammer or anvil force that will break most foes in a frontal engagement. But the fleet is not without its downsides, their firepower is superior only at close range, due to being smooth-bore cannons, the range of the weapons is poor, and since no weapons are mounted facing backwards the Russians would be in peril if the enemy could ever get in behind them, add to that a slightly below average maneuverability and the Russians become a very inflexible force. A mixed blessing is the conscripted crew that occupy most ships, although they would likely die in droves against superiorly trained foes in close combat, they make up for this with being strong in numbers. This may occasionally turn the Russians into a decent to good boarding force!

Aside from this primary doctrine, the Russians also employ lots of mortars, giving them some medium ranged firepower. The Russians also have many spotters in their rooster, thus somewhat consistently giving them the Strategic Advantage in many games.

The Russians have their fair share of sturginium based technology and use only their own unique generators. Most prevalent is the jammer that disrupts and reduce the strength of torpedo and rocket attacks against the vessel. The mimic generator operates by copying any other generator within range, thus indirectly giving the Russians access to every other generator in the game, provided they get close. Lastly the Russians have the glacier generator that can create icebergs and even freeze the rudders of enemy ships if it gets close.

The naval vessels follow two major design philosophies, first the regular ships. These look like big daggers if they could float, with a high and almost vertical rise from the waterline. This is broken only by the central power-plant, a circular structure that protrudes on both sides of the vessel. From these structures extend huge smoke-stacks "radiating with industry and manliness", the ships are crowded with details like external boiler tanks and ad-hoc piping Indeed, most Russian ships seem to be designed and constructed individually, with the smoke-stacks and bridge being possibly arranged entirely differently on the medium classed and larger vessels. For guns the Russians prefer large, twin-barrel turrets throughout their entire fleet, with few exceptions. In short, these vessels look like they are meant to smash into something with force.

The other major design seems to be inspired by the real world Popovka, which was a gunboat designed for shallow waters. Fortunately, it seems the Russian Coalition have worked around the technical difficulties of its real life counterpart. These ships are completely round. Were it not for the bridge or the guns it would have no discernible fore, and thanks to a complex system of streams underneath the hull it is amazingly maneuverable. These ships can be compared to a raft with a gun on it and it would actually be an apt comparison. These ships typically make up most of the small-class elements in a Russian force and presently include the Novgorod Frigate, the Nikel Heavy Frigate, the Veliky Escort and the Rudnitsky Repair Ship. These ships all break from the traditional Russian combat doctrine, although the frigates still carry reasonably big guns. They may easily turn to engage foes behind the main fleet. They also don't have the Ablative Armour that the rest of the Navy is known for.

For the land ships the design seems to be very box-like, inspiring a feeling of an unstoppable force of juggernauts rolling towards their foe to flatten anything that they don't blow to kingdom come on the way there. Especially unique for the Russians is the wheel assembly of huge and thick interlocked steel disks that are incredibly hard to dent or break, acting as an additional layer of armour to the sides rather than being a vulnerable liability like tank-tracks have a tendency to be. Just like the navy, the land ships employ huge twin-barrel turrets for the primary gunnery, and compliment this with bombards. The land force also enjoys the only underground transport in the game, a huge drill!

The sky-ships vary greatly and each seems to have a unique design, with but a few trends. The smaller vessels like the Suyetka and Myshkin have a solid-looking hemispherical nose. This hemispherical feature can be found built-in in the middle of the Saransk and on the belly of the Tunguska. The two larger sky-ships have a more boat-like shape but have huge cogs extending from inside the vessel. Just like the land and naval vessels, lots of piping and huge smoke-stacks are mandatory.

Behind the Scenes

The Russian Coalition is the in-game version of the Russian Empire, but with the point of divergence being the death of Catherine the Great in 1770 (rather than her real-world death in 1796), and the subsequent exile of her son Paul I.The ruling dynasty of the "Coalition" is the Dynasty "Rurik-novy", "New Riourkide" descendants of the dynasty of "Tsar" who preceded them Romanov dynasty the Riourkide best known for her last monarch, Ivan IV says "the Terrible". The names of the armed forces of the Coalition are also inspired by the period of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which were designated under the name of "White Army" armies whose troops and commanders were still loyal to the Tsar Nicolas, unlike "Red Army" revolutionaries.