Plotbunny: ME AU (Phht), Alliance Navy

Navy

Ship Weapons

Ship mounted weapons fall into three basic categories - Mass Accelerators, Magnetic-Hydrodynamic Weapons, and Torpedoes.

All Ship weapons fall into a variety of engagement ranges, and tactics then adjusted to the realities of what a particular ship weight can do. As a result, several general engagement ranges came into use based on what weapons could fire in them.

Close range weapons include the main gun of corvettes, fighters, and frigates, as well as Disruptor Torpedoes. Medium range is when the Cruiser's main gun can engage, while extreme range is the artillery duel arena of dreadnoughts.

Engagement Ranges
Close 0-50km SubCap, Frigates, Disruptor Torpedoes
Medium 100-250km DN broadsides
Long 300-950km Cruisers
Extreme 1,000-10,000+km DN spinal MA

Ship Defenses

Besides a ship's maneuverability and speed, it can only rely on three types of defense systems - kinetic barriers ("shields"), armor, and point defense lasers.

Kinetic Barriers

Cyclonic Barriers

Ship Classes

Ships classes in use prior to and during the First Contact War are as in canon. Given that we don't really know any ships classes from then, this isn't much of an issue. Also, the Alliance is not restricted in dreadnought construction by the Treaty of Farixen, so is not limited to 7 dreadnoughts as in canon.

Despite the lack of restriction on dreadnought hulls, the Alliance viewed its successes during the First Contact War as proof that a mobility-based force would serve better than a dreadnought centric force. As such, dreadnought hulls roughly correspond to the limits that would be imposed by the Treaty of Farixen.

Tech advances from Project Akheron have enabled smaller weight ships to pack punches equal to larger ships, and survive more damage. As such, fighters and frigates started becoming the core of the Alliance military fist. This became especially true with the introduction of Cyclonic Barrier Technology (CBT) and Magnetic-Hydrodynamic Weapons (MHW) in the 2170s.

The introduction of the Tantalus drive core and the IES stealth system has led towards a thought of turning the Alliance Navy into a stealthier force. The Navy is considering an 3-8 frigate squadron using the Normandy and Verdun class frigates to test the usefulness and feasibility of such a concept. Such a force would probably not come online until the 2190s. This hasn't stopped Navy designers from beginning to study the possibilities of stealthier cruisers and carriers.

Navy Craft

Marine Corps

Units

Any military uses units of various sizes to organize and command their soldiers, and the Alliance Marine Corps is no different.

These are the smallest units used, and are the ones most typically seen in the field. Usually the largest field unit outside of offensive operations is the squad, which is easily bunked on a frigate for rapid response to small threats throughout Alliance space. During the First Contact War, fights up to Company level occurred, and during the Batarian-Alliance War, Battalions were seen operating together during assaults on key locations.

An artillery company is referred to as "Battery," and do not utilize the fire team, squad, or platoon unit levels, though each artillery piece is roughly equivalent to a squad in crew.

Unit Abbr Size (Soldiers) Size (Unit) CO Rank
Fire Team FT 3 Cpl
Squad Sqd 12 3 FT, plus Sqd Leader FT Service Chief
Platoon PLAT 39 3 Sqd, plus PLAT Leader, PLAT Chief, Corpsman 2nd Lt
Company co 129 3 PLAT, plus command/support squad Lt Cdr
Battalion Bn 555 4 co, plus command/support PLAT Staff Cdr

Personal weapons

Nearly up to the Eden Prime Conflict, personal weapons used internal heat sinks that allowed a weapon to fire until it overheated, at which point it would be unable to fire again until it had completely dissipated the heat. The Geth began using detachable heat sinks referred to as 'thermal clips' in the mid-2170s. This removed the issue of weapons "jamming" from heat, but returned ranged weaponry back to the days of clips and magazines of the pre-Mass Effect (ME) era. It did increase their rate of fire and Alliance forces quickly followed their lead, largely relegating the internal heat sink designs to retirement.

Revolver
An iconic weapon of the pre-ME era, revolvers were rendered obsolete for law enforcement and military with the introduction of ME physics and technology. While it could be possible to create ME revolvers, they would for all intents and purposes be pistols instead and non-ME revolvers cannot keep pace with the abilities of ME semi-automatic pistols.

Pistol
Analogous to smaller caliber semi-automatic pistols of the pre-ME era, pistols are the standard sidearm for law enforcement and the military. These weapons use internal heat sinks.

  • Kessler (canon Alliance standard pistol - ME1)

Heavy Pistol
Created after the Geth introduced the use of thermal clips on personal weapons, Heavy Pistols are higher caliber semi-automatic pistols that were incredibly inefficient under the internal heat sink design.

  • M-3 Predator
  • M-5 Phalanx
  • M-6 Carnifex

Personal Armor

One of the more rapid and well received advances from the introduction of Mass Effect physics and technology was the changes to armor brought about. Unlike the somewhat clunky and heavy armor systems used during the late 20th and early 21st Century, the new armor designs provided similar protection at a fraction of the weight and across the whole body - and that was before one took into account the kinetic barriers the armor also came with.

While a variety of armor lines are available, the Alliance military utilizes one line as its standard - though soldiers may, if they wish, buy their own armor but repair and maintenance of those are lower priority for Armorers - and run competitions and checks every five years to ensure they're still using the best choice for protection and price.

In addition, the Alliance groups armors into types based on their protection abilities and generally follows the light/medium/heavy armor divisions, but actual placement depends on the armor and shield strength of the armor. Each type is divided into groups based on species shape, but only H and Q models are stocked and used by the Alliance.

The general designation for armor is Type#-(Species) Mk#(Armor) (Mod #). It should be noted that each armor designation refers to a different armor line. Type I Mk4B is not the same armor line as Type I Mk4N, for example.

Species Designation Species Use Armor Designation MOS
H Human, Asari, Batarian, etc B Infantry, general use
K Krogan G Electronic Warfare
Q Quarian H Hospital Corpsman (Medic)
S Salarian I Military Intelligence
T Turian N Special Forces
S Signal Corpsman (Communications)

The standard armor for an infantry unit would be Type I-(H/Q) Mk4B Mod 1. Platoon and higher command personnel would have Type II-(H/Q) Mk3B Mod 4.

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