Here's the brief initial scriblings on some of the military groups that will feature in Hot War.
The Army
Now the foremost military power in the land (although the Royal Navy tries to dispute this), the British Army is not what it once was, but still remains the most significant armed formation in the British Isles. The losses of the first weeks of the war destroyed many of the famous old regiments and those who were stationed overseas in Germany and further afield were never heard from again.
Still, the Army is a significant power, having what some would describe as undue sway with the Government, dictating the use of many emergency powers and laws. One things which stood the land forces in good stead was their early seizure of large stocks of fuel during the first days of the war. Although the stocks are drastically limited (and declining with every passing day), they do have enough to run a reasonable number of armoured vehicles in the south of England. Pigs and Saracens are a fairly common sight on the streets of London, their battered green shells showing the scars of conflict with things the soldiers were never trained to fight.
The Royal Air Force (RAF)
The RAF is an organisation in steep decline. Its role in the war and it's subsequent loss of most of it power have made the Airforce a shadow of its former self. Without enough fuel for its remaining aircraft, there is precious little of a role for it. The squadrons and wings are now reduced to a few ad-hoc formations with a mish-mash of airworthy craft and trained personnel.
The RAF today flies to occasional Canberra photo-recon mission out across the English Channel to try and ascertain what is going on in Europe. The missions are deeply unpopular with the remaining pilots. The higher echelons of command are more concerned with maintaining the organisation as something of an independent force, rather than be subsumed into the ranks of the ascendant army. It therefore attempts to re-invent itself as a specialist technical unit, probing into the mysteries of the twisted technology and fighting a counter-productive turf war with the BERG.
Those in government have sought to exclude the RAF from the decision making process and command structure, apparently in an vain attempt to distance themselves from the horrors of INDIGO DIAMOND. The other armed services are complicit in this, side lining air force personnel, effectively reducing the RAF to the status of outsider. In many ways, this is inordinately foolish, as the RAF still maintains a reasonable manpower level and access to some vital supplies.
The Royal Navy (RN)
Hit hard during the nuclear attacks, the RN lost many of its most significant surface assets very early on and, in the present, can field little in the way of heavy combat units. Like the army, however, they did manage to secure reasonable fuel supplies, mainly through the proximity of coastal oil storage depots to several of their untouched bases. Concentrating their resources and vessels in the south, they have established themselves as the front line against any further incursions from the Continent.
The Navy also has a massive bargaining chip in the form of the nuclear submarine HMS Dreadnought (see page XX). Tied up in the Thames, she is one of the few reliable sources of electrical power that doesn't rely on dwindling fuel stocks. The cruiser HMS Belfast also sits on the Thames as mobile artillery battery, loosing off rounds into Greater London when fire support is required by Royal Marine units (and grudgingly, occasionally, at the request of the Army). And the Navy does have one other powerful asset in the form of Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral of The Fleet, Earl Mountbatten (see pg.XX for more on this notable figure). Even in these troubled times, Mountbatten still favours the Navy and does everything in his power to ensure it gets the best of treatment. Needless to say, the other arms of the military look less than favourably on this preferential treatment.
The majority of the RN forces are concentrated into its small boat flotillas, composite units combining Motor Gun Boats, Motor Torpedo Boats, landing craft, training boats and converted civilian vessels. Larger vessels are just too costly in terms of the amount of fuel and maintenance they require. Indeed, the Navy only maintains one big ship in a state of something approaching readiness, the World War Two cruiser HMS Belfast. Even she is slowly succumbing to a lack of repair facilities.
