United Commonwealth Defence Force

United Commonwealth Defence Force
Flag of the United Commonwealth Defence Force
Characteristics
Headquarters	War Office Building, Bristol Great Britain
Branches	United Commonwealth Land Command United Commonwealth Maritime Command United Commonwealth Air Command United Commonwealth Space Command
Historical era	Established - 1968 Dissolved - 2155
Engagements	Allied-Cramori War

The United Commonwealth Defence Force (UCDF) was the military force of the United Commonwealth, a human nation that existed primarily on Earth and Venus between 1968 and 2155. The UCDF inherited the military assets of the preceding European Union Defence Force and the separate militaries of the member states of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Between 1968 and 1988, when the United Commonwealth was structured as an intergovernmental supranational political and economic union, the assets of the UCDF (including its nuclear weapons) were directly under the command of the United Commonwealth Secretariat. The Secretary General of the United Commonwealth controlled the activation codes for all of the UCDF's nuclear weapons and orbital weapons platforms. From 1988, when the United Commonwealth federalised, civilian control of the UCDF was shifted to the United Commonwealth Executive, with the newly-created President of the United Commonwealth being the ultimate supreme civilian commander of Commonwealth military forces. In most circumstances, the deployment of Commonwealth military forces had to be approved by a majority vote of the Commonwealth Parliament in Luxembourg.

The United Commonwealth possessed one of the largest military forces in the human world upon its formation in the late 20th century, but it was outclassed technologically by the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan. By the early 21st century, however, the UCDF had developed into humanity's most powerful national military force. For most of the long Allied-Camori War, the United Commonwealth's military forces would constitute the bulk of humanity's military resistance against the Cramori Empire.

In 2155, with the replacement of human national governments with the Human Federation, the United Commonwealth Defence Force ceased to exist as an independent military force. The resources of the United Commonwealth military were integrated into the newly-established Human Federation Defence Force.

Land Command

The FN FAL, the standard service rifle of Land Command until the early 21st century.

Land Command was the service branch of the UCDF specialising in land warfare. It was commonly referred to as the army. The largest service branch of the UCDF, Land Command inherited many different types of weapons from the preceding armies of the European Union and several Commonwealth of Nations member states, including a variety of bolt-action and semi-automatic service rifles (predominantly Belgian-made FN FALs) and European, British and American-made light tanks, heavy tanks and gravity drive-propelled scout and attack vehicles.

Land Command operated several different types of howitzers and tactical ballistic missiles equipped with tactical nuclear warheads and nuclear artillery shells, primarily for use in Eastern Europe against the large formations of ground units it expected to face in a war with the Soviet Union.

Land Command operated infantry and armoured amphibious and space warfare battalions, which were intended for deployment in amphibious assault operations from ships and deployments to protect the interplanetary colonies of Commonwealth member states in conjunction with Maritime Command and Space Command, respectively.

When the Sol-Cramori War began in 1976, UCDF Land Command regularly deployed troops and equipment aboard Commonwealth Space Command and Commonwealth civilian spaceships to fight against the forces of the Cramori Empire on other planets and in distant star systems.

In 1991 Land Command began to field its first directed-energy weapons. These were reverse-engineered from Cramori Empire equipment captured on Mars; the first-generation weapons, which were large and cumbersome, were mounted on trailers, tracked and wheeled armoured platforms, and gravity drive-propelled vehicles.

In the early 2000s, the UCDF developed walkers for Land Command with technical assistance from Japan. Walkers had several advantages over gravity drive craft in battle, the most significant being that they were found to be far less vulnerable to hits from directed-energy weapons.

From 2002, Land Command began to replace traditional semi-automatic rifles and general purpose machine guns with directed-energy pulse rifles developed with Europan assistance.

From 2009, the United Commonwealth began deploying vehicle-mounted force field generators to protect formations of ground units. By the 2030s force field generators were small enough to be worn by individual human soldiers.

Maritime Command

Maritime Command was the naval force of the UCDF. It operated several different warship and airship designs. Due to a lack of funding, some of Maritime Command's surface warships dated from the Great War period but had been upgraded with advanced weaponry (including nuclear weapons), sensors and electronic equipment, allowing them to remain potent naval assets in the second half of the 20th century. Maritime Command's most advanced assets were several modern gravity drive-propelled transport and aircraft carrier airships, which had been inherited from the European Union and Great Britain. These airships were primarily intended to transport Land Command air-ground task forces to different parts of the globe within a matter of hours, and then act as mobile command centres and fire support batteries once ground forces had been deployed.

Maritime Command also constructed a fleet of six deterrent submarines. These submarines used gravity drives for propulsion, nuclear reactors to power electrical and life support systems, and were armed with gravity drive and plasma rocket-propelled nuclear missiles.

There was limited investment in Maritime Command after the start of the Sol-Cramori War in 1976, with most funding shifting to Space Command. Commonwealth naval vessels and naval airships were progressively upgraded with missiles and, eventually, directed-energy weapons that could be fired from the sea at targets in space, as part of a final line of defence for Earth against a Cramori projectile attack.

Air Command

Air Command was the air force of the UCDF. Air Command inherited several different types of aircraft from the European Union and the member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, including the EPCA (European Plasma Combat Aircraft), an advanced fighter and medium-range strike aircraft powered by a plasma propulsion engine giving it the capability to reach several times the speed of sound within the Earth's atmosphere, and several types of European and British-designed attack, strike, close air support and transport aircraft powered by first-generation gravity drives. A small portion of Air Command's combat air fleet still consisted of aging fixed-wing turboprop-driven close air support and bomber aircraft by 1970, but these were being quickly replaced by gravity drive-propelled craft.

Space Command

At its inception, Commonwealth Space Command controlled the primary strategic nuclear deterrent assets of the United Commonwealth. The United Commonwealth inherited several fairly modern orbital weapons platforms from the European Union and Great Britain, some of which were equipped with nuclear weapons. Other strategic nuclear weapon systems included land-based missiles powered by plasma rockets and gravity drives.

In the 1970s, Commonwealth Space Command had arguably the world's third most-powerful interplanetary space warship fleet after the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Cramori Empire's opening attack against the Sol System in 1976, the Commonwealth Space Command fleet - which still primarily relied on plasma rockets for propulsion - was too slow to intercept the Cramori worldship fleet when it first arrived in the Sol System. Faster American, Soviet and Japanese space warships were therefore left to launch the first wave of humanity's counterattack against the Cramori. However, as the frontline American, Soviet and Japanese space fleets had been destroyed in the engagement with the Cramori, Commonwealth spaceships formed the spearhead of the second wave of the human counterattack against Cramori ground forces on Mars and Europa.

Space Command acquired faster-than-light spaceflight capability when the United Commonwealth tested an experimental spacecraft powered by a kugelblitz drive in 2001. After the destruction of most of the United States' frontline space fleet in its disastrous Vega offensive in 2005, Commonwealth Space Command became the human world's most powerful space military force. At its height during the war against the Cramori, Space Command operated a fleet of more than 1,000 interstellar space warships at one time.

United Commonwealth Space Command inventory in 1976

At the start of the Sol-Cramori War in 1976, United Commonwealth Space Command possessed the following ships and space stations:

Space warships

• 3 Magellan-class space warships (built from early 1970s) - plasma rocket-powered cruisers with secondary gravity drive propulsion designed in the United Commonwealth, all armed with thermonuclear weapons. Nuclear reactors used for electrical generation and life support systems. Up to five more may be constructed to replace the older Leonardo da Vinci and Bremen class ships.
• 7 Valiant-class space warships (built 1962 to early 1970s) - plasma rocket-powered cruisers with secondary gravity drive propulsion designed by Great Britain, all armed with thermonuclear weapons. Nuclear reactors used for electrical generation and life support systems.
• 5 Michelangelo-class space warships (built 1962-early 1970s, designed in Germany, formerly called Brandenburg-class) - plasma rocket-powered cruisers with secondary first generation gravity drive propulsion, all armed with thermonuclear weapons. Nuclear reactors used for electrical generation and life support systems.
• 2 Marco Polo-class space warships (built 1962-1967, designed in France, formerly called Foch-class) - plasma rocket-powered cruisers with secondary first generation gravity drive propulsion, armed with thermonuclear weapons. Nuclear reactors used for electrical generation and life support systems.
• 1 Leonardo Da Vinci-class space warship (built 1962-1967, designed in Italy) - plasma rocket-powered cruiser with secondary first generation gravity drive propulsion, refitted with thermonuclear weapon armament.
• 4 Bremen-class space warships (built 1950-1961, designed in Germany) - plasma rocket-powered cruisers. 3 armed with thermonuclear weapons; 1 still armed with atomic weapons and due to be refitted with thermonuclear weapon armament.

Orbital weapons platforms

• 5 Hades-class orbital weapons platforms (built 1962-1967 by Germany) - All armed with thermonuclear weapons with nuclear reactors for on-board electrical power and life support systems.
• 4 Vanguard-class orbital weapons platforms (built late 1950s to 1967 by Great Britain) - All armed with thermonuclear weapons. Nuclear reactors used for electrical generation and life support systems.
• 3 Zeus-class orbital weapons platforms (built 1963-1967 by France) - All armed with atomic weapons with nuclear reactors for on-board electrical power and life support systems. Planned to be refitted with thermonuclear weapon armament.