Fire Battalion
Composition
Training
Each new recruit require to go through two months of harsh bootcamp that puts them into cenarios where they are to save dolls, scarecrows or other humanlike objects from burning buildings both within and outside of simulated firefights, using rubber pellets as bullets and blunt steel. The training doesn't pull any punches and it does happen, even though rarely, that casualities are had during these months. The point behind them though is to prepare each platoon for the horrors of war ahead of them.
Logistics
Logistical Support
The Fire Battalion usually require fortified positions and cover to stay behind, as a defensive rather than offensive force. While areas underneath their vigil are attacked, they tend to use the chaos which unfolds to their advantage. Utilizing smoke, heat and toxic fumes to attack enemy assailants where they have a hard time or might be incapable of properly defending themselves.
To stay alive, they've also got help from various other Brigades, not to mention fellow Fire Brigade battalions. The Ashcouriers for one are meant to swiftly destroy any artilery or long range threats to their infantry. At the same time the Trencher Brigade helps them dig out defendable positions and trenches to hide in, if the warfront is outside of a settlement. Which is prefered to limit destruction.
Auxilia
The battalion has a large array of possible Auxilia forces which may aid them both within and outside of combat. Depending on what is needed for the mission, they can call in every other battalion of their Brigade to perform duties in their area of expertice. They may also call in Knighthoods to help protect civilians and aristocratic targets from the enemy, or to help defend their own soldiers in the field. Rarely, though not inconcievably, they may call unto free company or mercenary troops, cavalary and warmachina to support them during critical battles.
Upkeep
Though they're paid well, this unit is still of low cost as their gear and supplies are far from as expensive to manufacture than many others. Hence, Normania can easily afford to have thousands of troopers part of the battalion. The real costs rather comming from the time it takes to train them up, than to arm and feed them.
Recruitment
To be recruited into the Fire Battalion, one must first practice both theoretical and practical skills within both firefighting as a base course and military university as an extension of this. If this criteria is fullfilled, they'll be assigned to a platoon for further training.
History
The year was 1723, an age known as the Technological Revolution had just sparked out of Westport and now scientists and governments all over the Commons basked in a golden age of engineering marvels. For the Empire of Diestria, the large open terrain of Normania and it's many educated inhabitants allowed it's aristocracy to set up a plethora of engineering, research and chemically based facilities for manufacture and experimentation on machinery. Having several different nobles, rich merchants or even guilds and knighthoods running about and performing different private projects wouldn't prove only beneficial though, as many of them had a senseless lack for security and management protocols. Experiments both within facilities and out in the wilds would sometimes end in catastrophic failures leading to wildfires, alchemical inferno's and the rare rampaging warmachina destroying everything in it's path. The solution to this was an abundance of firefighting stations built all over the regions. The cities and towns having large command centers for them, villages having the mandatory Fire Battalion barracks and certain castles even their own facility to host a platoon of firefighters to swiftly deal with a catastrophy before it could turn into a tradgedy. Thus, the Fire Battalion swiftly became an almost militantly organized and diciplined force, even though it was technically not a combatative group. In more present times; The year 1755, a Peregonic Inquisition which heralded a mix between the elemental gods of fire and the divine gods of war and penance arrived on a quest to purge demonic, occult and otherwise theocratically illicit activites from their 'puppet' empire. Having encountered the Order of the Falcon and their own aspirations to rid Diestria from it's current Tyranny, it seemed at first as if their goals would intersect into a plausbile alliance. That was, untill events regarding John Carver, the Chimera war of 1813 had them investigate the faction. Twenty years later, they caught House Ashford performing ethical experiments on the human psyche by usage of chemistry and occultism to cure mental illnesses. Arts such as hypnotism or magic that controlled or rearranged the mind was seen as heresy, used only by witches and vile, overly salacious women that enjoyed toying with the hearstrings of men. For a man and a prestigeous noble at that to use such intolerable methodes to 'pretend' to be a healer was inconcievable. Impossible even. Thus, his wife was the first casuality in a raging war that'd bloom between factions. The Red Clergy as they called themselves proved an opponent too dangerous to fight for even the Witch Hunters. Their mastery of flame and willingness to go to extremes to hunt down the likes of Dark Gods and Demonic Incursions had them burn entire walls around them. Saved from the flames by pure zeal and mastery of the elements. While the clothes of their foes burned too easily. Although their own gear was clunky, badly optimised for combat and moreso utilized for keeping warmth and flames at bay, the Fire Battalion was already trained to be fearless, with good dicipline and physique. Though they were no elite, giving them weapons alone was enough to make them a competent and effective force, which could thread through the flames and descend unto their foes from the smoke. Considering they were also already trained in evacuating civics from collapsing buildings, they came to rapidly grow as a defending military. Protecting the lands and people from the Clergy, whenever they tried to attack.
Equipment
To survive the infernal fires that rage on the battlefields, the battalion is equipped with medical gear, foam bombs and fire resistant coats. Accompanied with this, they generally bring a bunch of firehoses with them, to be utilized by waterpumps to fight fire.Weaponry
Due to generally fighting close quarters, the battalion is armed with weapons such as fireaxes, revolvers, shotguns, musket and bayonett with the rare sabre. Most members of the platoon are armed with short barreled scatterguns and muskets. Three out of eleven carry axes rather than muskets though, while the eleventh; A Serjant in charge of the platoon, wields sabre and revolver.
Type
Infantry
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