Seswenna Aeternum
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATIONIntent: Provide a rank-and-file military force for the Eriadu Ascendancy
Image Credit: Mudtrooper wiki page/Solo: A Star Wars Story – The Official Collector's Edition, Imperial Academy wiki page, -- Troopers -- by yvanquinet on Deviantart, Star Wars Databank: E-22
Role: Rank-and-file infantry
Links: Swamp troopers/Canon, Imperial Army soldiers, Imperial Army Troopers/Legends, Eriadu Ascendancy, Eriadu, Imperial Combat Exercises, Imperial Academy, United States Army Basic Training, Vandar Tarkin, Eriadu Rangers
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Eriadu Army Troopers
Affiliation: Vandar Tarkin, Eriadu Ascendancy
Classification: Infantry
Equipment: Sealed bodysuit, Plastoid field armor (vest and upper arms), Waterproof capes, Blast helmets with integrated DH107 comlinks, Scratch-resistant goggles, Oxygen masks, E-10R blaster rifles, E-22 blaster rifles, E-11 blaster rifles, A280C blaster rifles, SE-14r light repeating blasters, E-11s sniper rifles, SX-21 scatterblasters, DLT-19 heavy blaster rifles, F-Web heavy repeating blasters, Viper Underbarrel Grenade Launchers, Water purifiers, Rations, Flare sticks, Grappling Hooks, Treppus-2 vibroknives, Camouflage tents
Description: Army Troopers are the most numerous of the Eriadu Ascendancy's military units, though the Eriadu Rangers still serve as the face of the Ascendancy. These olive-armored soldiers perform the more routine combat operations that do not require the advanced skills of the Rangers.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Unit Size: Large
Unit Availability: Common
Unit Experience: Trained
Combat Function: The Eriadu Army Troops serve as Vandar Tarkin's rank-and-file ground soldiers, as well as mechanized infantry when supported by vehicles.
Strengths:
+ Disciplined: Though they are not as rigorously or extensively trained as the Rangers, Army Troopers are still a disciplined, organized fighting force.
+ We Have Reserves: The training of Army Troopers is much shorter than that of the Rangers (around ten weeks), allowing them to more quickly replace losses.
+ Vehicular Support: Army Troopers can can typically expect vehicular support to be available in combat, whether that be tanks or providing covering fire or airspeeders/starfighters delivering air support.
Weaknesses:
- Lightly Armored: Eriadu Army Troopers are even lesser-armored than the Rangers, relying on weak plastoid field armor for protection. The armor only provides protection to the head, chest, upper arms, and lower legs, and cannot withstand direct shots from blasters.
- Rank-and-File: Army Troopers lack the advanced training of stormtrooper-level soldiers, meaning units of more elite enemy troops are capable of outperforming them even in smaller numbers.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Eriadu Army Troopers are the rank-and-file infantry of the Eriadu Ascendancy, disciplined soldiers enforcing the will of Vandar Tarkin across his territory on Eriadu, and soon abroad as well. Like the Eriadu Rangers, Army recruits are selected from compliant nearby villages, though the physical standards are not quite as high as them. After selection, recruits are put through a swift but intense Basic Training lasting around ten weeks at the Maximilian Veers Building, located within the expanded Tarkin family compound.
During the first week, recruits are drilled in the correct procedures for marching, standing at attention, while holding fully functioning rifles. At this time, they are also instructed in the virtues promoted by Vandar Tarkin: loyalty, bravery, and selflessness service to the Ascendancy. During this week, recruits also learn their way around their rifles without actually firing them, which includes trigger control as well as how to field strip and maintain them.
The following week, recruits receive unarmed combat training. They are instructed in the basics of Imperial Combat Exercises, the training routines taught to every stormtrooper and officer of the Galactic Empire. Instruction in analyzing maps and maneuvering terrain is given during this stage as well, and the recruits are given coordinate points outside the compound to find their own way to, to put that training to the test.
Army trainees undergoing rigorous physical training.
Later in the week are obstacle course and teamwork exercises. Recruits must complete the obstacle course, which is set at extreme heights, before rappelling down a 60-foot wall. In the teamwork exercises, squads must navigate another series of obstacles, this time emphasizing team-wide performance instead of individual success. Rudimentary first aid training is also given during this time, including dressing wounds, applying bacta, and improvising splints for wounded limbs.
In week 3, recruits are trained in melee combat utilizing weak, non-lethal electrostaves with much lower levels of electricity, methods for carrying out-of-commission squadmates, and physical problem solving, such as delivering sensitive or weighty equipment through obstacles from point Aurek to Besh. Recruits are also introduced to their oxygen masks in week 3, instructed on their use, and subjected to a chamber filled with dispersal gas. Recruits are required to remove their masks before they can leave, and are usually made to recite information while they are unmasked such as their name or sentences from the Tarkin Doctrine, so that the recruit is forced to be subjected to the effects of the gas while remaining focused.
The next phase begins the following week, where trainees begin live weapons instruction. Service rifle target practice utilizing E-10Rs, E-11s, and E-22s is first, and recruits must fire at progressively more difficult targets as well as pop-up targets at various ranges. The soldiers also becomes familiar with other weapons during this time, including repeating blasters like F-Webs and DLT-19s, grenades such as thermal detonators and concussive grenades, grenade launchers such as the Viper grenade launcher. The second week of Phase II involves the preparation and use of rocket/missile launchers against armored targets such as tanks and walkers, where trainees are instructed on weak points such as engines, repulsors, and leg joints.
A young Army Trooper wielding a double-barrled E-22 blaster rifle
Phase III is the final, most difficult stage of all. During this phase, recruits are subjected to examination to discover whether they meet the physical standards required of them to continue. Recruits failing to meet the standards are removed from the academy and returned to their villages (after undergoing mental wipes to ensure their training insofar cannot be utilized against the Ascendancy).
Those who pass will move on to the final stages of training, which involve camping on the Carrion Plateau, and field training exercises such as nighttime combat and urban terrain training. There is no access to the compound's mess hall, so trainees must subsist on ration packs instead. Instructors will work to sabotage the recruits in this stage to the fullest capacity possible, actively ruining best-laid plots in an attempt to promote improvisation and instill the importance of a Plan Besh. Trainees in this stage of training will usually also be pitted against other recruits also in this stage, and competition is often fierce between training companies here. This has led to rivalries between graduated companies serving actively, both friendly and otherwise.
The last step to becoming a trooper, during the second week of Phase III, is a special tactical field training exercise. While instructors may advise the trainees, it is up to them to plan and execute the operation on their own. Aggression must be utilized, but not blind rage, and recruits should be fearless but not through stupidity. Only once recruits prove that they can intelligently exemplify these soldierly attributes will they be permitted to become official Eriadu Army Troopers.
While Army Troopers are not as elite as the Rangers, they nonetheless fulfill an essential role as the rank-and-file infantry of the Eriadu Ascendancy and are not to be underestimated. They serve the Ascendancy in far greater numbers than the Rangers and are still capable of performing intense combat operations, with more vehicular support than Rangers are likely to have. The Rangers may be Tarkin's scalpel, but the Army Troopers are his hammer, and with their instruction in urban combat the Army Troopers possess the training necessary to seize Eriadu City, an event likely to happen some time in the near future.
An Eriadu Army Trooper in full panoply of war
