Royal Hapan Armed Forces

Honour of Service - Pride of the People - Glory of the Nation
A military parade takes place at the Lorell Hall, the seat of the government on Hapes Prime.

As the reunified Hapes Consortium emerged from the long night of the civil war, the new Hapan state sought to rebuild its fractured institutions according to a vision of the new era. The Royal Hapan Armed Forces were reformed from the remnants of the various standing fighting forces and their equipment, but with the chain of command once more answering to a single ruler on the Hapan Throne. The teachings of the brutal civil war and the victories of the Phoenix movement were still fresh in memories as the new military structure and its doctrines took shape. Many notable expatriates would also return during this time to the Hapes Cluster, bringing back with them their considerable leadership experience of both the Imperial and Alliance militaries. The Hapan state would greatly spend on equipping and modernizing the forces of the Consortium over the coming decades as the nation itself reached new heights of prosperity and industrialization, spending lavishly on research and development, with many of the designs and technologies of the military in use today developed during this period. In the years after the Black Sun Crisis, the addition of great many Miy`Til-class Starfighters, Hetrinar Assault Bombers, Nova-class Battlecruisers, as well as the Battle Dragons into active service as the military build-up continued, enhanced the strength of the Royal Hapan Navy to heights previously unimaginable, elevating the Armed Forces from a more modest national defence force into a true regional power not to be trifled with lightly.

The years that followed would see the Royal Hapan Armed Forces regularly go through smaller revisions as it sought to keep up with the times. The Hapan military doctrines would become notably adjusted, however, with foreign designs beginning to make their way into the hands of the service branches; Imperial walkers, Star Destroyers of all variants, Trade Federation droids and battleships, Mandalorian small arms, and numerous other additions to the arsenal of indigenous designs proved invaluable for the Royal Hapan Armed Forces’ ability to be able to deploy enough firepower to hold its positions in the face of any adversary.

Known previously for combining strategic patience with swift counter-attacks to respond to any incursions into the Hapes Cluster, the addition of such formidable foreign armaments to frontline units changed the way RHAF prepared for war. Hapan military planners had traditionally relied on the response times afforded by the short distances between systems, coupled with the relatively high hyperspeeds Nova-class Battlecruisers could achieve to deploy groups of Nova’s with fighter wings to delay and harass any hostile formations too strong to be taken head on. This was used to buy time for the fleets to muster to deploy in concert in sufficient numbers against any adversaries with a numerical or technological advantage over the hapan defenders.

The addition of heavy capital class warships into the fleets deployed to important systems, and the increasingly fortified local defences meant that often case even smaller Battle Dragon and Nova-class Battlecruiser based groups could now be jumped in immediately and be anchored onto the field by the firepower afforded by the Imperial Star Destroyers. This was calculated to greatly reduce the likelihood of needing to yield position in the face of overpowering enemy presence while waiting for the full weight of the Hapan military to manoeuvre into position, a crucial delay that could’ve forced the field commanders to choose between committing their forces too early, or risk watching as local defences get overrun and reinforcement paths cut off.

In similar tone, despite the more than satisfactory effectiveness of hapan small arms, the quality of the standing army and marine detachments continued to grow with the upgrades to personal gear and supporting elements, in particular to heavier armoured units, larger delivery systems to complement the venerable Atlas-class Troop Transport Shuttle, and to personal shielding, introduced over the years. More recently, there has been a notable increase in conscription figures for non-native races, as the Royal Hapan Army and the Royal Hapan Marines have begun to make greater use of the more diverse population living in the Cluster today, in their efforts to recruit the sentients with the best possible traits for frontline combat.

The introduction of new variants of the Miy`Til-class Starfighters and Hetrinar Assault Bombers are expected to offer better support for the movements of capital ship formations, as well as prove useful in providing better screening for forward deploying planetfall and ship boarding forces. The well-rounded nature of the Battle Dragon regardless ensures that its role as the main battleship of the Royal Hapan Navy will remain uncontested for the foreseeable future. And as local system and planetary defences continue to be reinforced with growing numbers of fighter garrisons and weapons installations in space and on the ground, aided by improvements to response times gained through advances to the streamlined joint forces command lines, first warning and communication systems, any opponent seeking to invade the Cluster is ensured to find itself facing against a well prepared defender.

Yet, there is a wide consensus among strategists that any conflict that would force its arrival upon the Consortium would be unlikely to be ended conclusively simply by repelling the enemy in the Cluster. Hence, the Royal Hapan Armed Forces must maintain its readiness to project force and sustain operations far away from the borders of the Cluster, be it in the form of small strike groups, or even entire assault fleets.

The Royal Hapan Armed Forces as the military arm of the Hapes Consortium answers to the Ministry of Defence, which represents it within the Royal Council, while the Sovereign is the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The different service branches and key operational units are represented on the Hapan Military High Command, through which the armed forces of the Consortium are led across the home sector and beyond.