Kalistani Major History

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Kalistani Regular Navy nearing Full Compliment
Naval Acquisition paused following Kaliburg Earthquake
Port Swedes, Vrassa
February 2, 4900


The last shipment of fully armed 5100 Class Cruisers, dubbed "Luxon II Class" in the Republic, Arrive at Port Swedes Station enroute to Yoshimi

The Ten Year Naval Acquisition Program begun by the late Premier Marguerite Beloit in 4881 has stretched into a project almost twice as long, but is finally nearing completion, as the last ships in the reconstructed Kalistani Regular Navy are finally being commissioned for Service.

The Regular Navy is at its full complement in all but the 3rd Fleet, stationed at Yoshimi Station in Suldanor, which has been awaiting the final two 5100 class Cruisers to arrive from The Kingdom of Hutori. These Cruisers will replace the old Luxon Class ship that was in the Battle Order, adding more air defense to the fleet that maintains the South Limit of the Strait Defense. The final arrival of these last ships in Kalistani Waters brings Kalistan up to a total of 8 Air Defensive AEGIS Missile Cruisers, and shrinks the gap in power between the Republic and its neighbors.

"We were unable to salvage the vast majority of our Kaliburg-Class Destroyers, and were forced to build new ones," said Defense Minister Edmund West. "Likewise, we were entirely unable to salvage many of the old Frigates and Corvettes, but luckily, when we originally purchased the ships, we also purchased schematicsand ship designs to produce those ships for ourselves, and new design techniques have been applied to these old designs, including weight saving measures that are cutting edge and were simply not available in the Republic when the first few generations of those ships were constructed."

The New techniques include steel-aluminum alloys, advanced electronic tracking systems which make for more accurate direct fire, surface based torpedo launchers, and lighter weight, more reactive armor plating on hulls. "The design of the 5100 Cruisers (RL: Ticonderoga Class Cruiser) that went to Hutori for Armament forced us to reconsider everything we had been doing when it came to standard ship design," said Minister West. "Our engineers solved a number of problems in that one ship to make it, when combined with cutting edge Hutorian proprietary weaponry and electronic systems, literally the most advanced ship on the surface of the Ocean today. It is lighter, more maneuverable, can operate with fewer men and women, and cleaner, and what it can't shoot down, it can easily outrun. The 5100s, which will be designated the Luxon II class Cruisers in Kalistan, then served as a prototype for improvements that we could make to the designs for smaller vessels that we had to rebuild due to the years of liberal neglect of our naval assets."

The Submarine Service, which was prioritized, and was nearly completed before the Earthquake, has been standing guard in the Straits for nearly 10 years, while the remaining ships in the three Kalistani Regular fleets were slowly reconstructed. Luckily, the Militia Marine forces were deployed as well, to allow limited surface capabilities and fill in patrol gaps in both the Northern and Southern Limits. But re-acquisition came to a screeching halt when Kaliburg was hit by the devastating earthquake that killed nearly 7000 citizens of Kaliburg, and made most of the Infrastructure of the capital entirely unservicable.

"We had a lot of damage," said Minister West. "And the Shipyards were not spared. We had already had major delays around nationalization that put us more than a four years behind schedule, and the earthquake forced us to scale back our ambitions for this generation of the fleet and not go crazy the way we did with the 5100s. The rest of our fleet consists of more traditional construction techniques, but we were able to make some changes in resource management to get at least some of the benefits of the new technology in nearly all of our newest generation of ship, especially in the displacement department. This will give our ships an edge in terms of maneuverability that similarly classed ships of other nations do not currently possess, and will make Kalistan a significant player in the naval politics of the Northern Anantonese for a long time to come, even with older designs."

Now that the last ships in the Re-Acquisition Program are finally entering Service, The Premier of the Republic and the Defense Minister have formally invited their Hutorian Counterparts to the Republic to conduct training Drills. Said Minister West: "Well, these Cruisers especially handle more like Speedboats than their lumbering counterparts. We were able to reduce weight on them by 15%, meaning they sit higher in the water, which required us to lower decks on the ship by a full foot and a half to allow them to keep their traditional profile. The lowering of the Decks further decreased the weight on the ship, which allowed us to introduce additional ballast and stability measures. The result is a ship which is just as stable, even in rough seas, but also faster, has a shallower draft and wider service range and still packs major firepower in a multitude of situations."

The Minister then laughed, "As you can imagine, the handling of this "concept car of the sea" might pose a challenge to even the saltiest mariner in the great Hutori Navy. So we have invited them to Kalistan to train on these ships with us. They need the opportunity to learn the piloting under these new conditions, which are significantly different than the previous version of the 5100s they were sailing. And we need some extensive education on the proper employment of the AEGIS systems, which can track dozens of targets and hit them with pinpoint accuracy. There is still a lot of learning that needs to happen, and our Regulars are aching to test their sea legs against some expert tacticians in the Hutori Navy." The Militia Marine Forces have been invited to participate with the Kalistani Regulars in the exercise, and will work with Hutori to both practice boarding tactics, as well as teach Hutori methods of evading irregular units at sea. "Hopefully the Marines don't spend all their time on Hutori ships getting drunk," said Minister West. "That's as likely a scenario as not."

The exercises are proposed for August 4901, immediately following FOMAT in Suldanor.